Locals win silver at pond hockey championship

On Valentine’s Day weekend near Eagle River, Wis., the Pincherry Lake Loons went all the way to win silver in the Labatt Blue/USA Hockey Pond Hockey National Championships, losing by one point to the Dumpster Divers of Bloomington, Iowa.

The Pincherry Lake Loons are six local guys who played their first game together as a team at the championships.

They competed in the novice level, consisting of 24 teams. This is the first time they entered the competition, after having visited it last year to check it out. A total of 196 teams played on 20 rinks at the fourth annual championship.

Team members Dave Moynihan and Kelly Elwell play hockey on the Humboldt Park Lagoon and help keep the ice clear of snow during the winter months. Moynihan, of Bay View, has a cabin near Eagle River on Pincherry Lake, hence the team name. 

Pond hockey differs from regular hockey in several ways. It’s four-on-four, with six people allowed per team. There are no boards, so Moynihan said you have to get the puck out of the snow. You deal with cracks and humps in the ice. There are smaller nets. Moynihan never played regular hockey, but said pond hockey has less contact, except “friendly” contact and accidental collisions. Challenges including battling Mother Nature and keeping the puck down.

The Pincherry Lake Loons’ uniform colors are red, black, and white. Will they be back next year? “We sure hope to,” Moynihan said.

Moynihan described the 2009 tournament action:

“We played for the first time as a team in game one of the tournament. We lost that game and had to regroup and figure out a different strategy. We decided to play slightly more defensively and eked out three wins in a row to put us into the finals.

“The final game we were up 2-0 at the half, (you play two 15 minute periods-no stopping). We were playing a team that in my view was much better then us. We were playing as a team and had two breakouts that we were able to score on. The second half started and the other team had a new strategy as well; that was to plant their biggest guy in front of our goaltender and block his view and their best guy in their defensive position so that we had a very tough time getting the puck to the other end. Their strategy worked and they were able to beat us 4-3 to take the gold. We celebrated as if we had won and had a great weekend.”