HOLIDAY TIME IN MANCHESTER – DAY 1

Junior Charlie Plottner had two points

      The Hanover Marauders boy’s ice hockey team opened up round robin play in the Manchester High School Christmas Holiday Tournament with an efficient 6-2 win against the Division II Bow Falcons.  Coming off a snow cancellation, which forced postponement of their widely anticipated match-up against Bedford this past weekend, Dick Dodd’s Marauders took to the ice for the first of what will hopefully be four contests over the Holiday week.

 

      The Falcons came into the game with a season record of 1-2 having followed up an opening game win against Winnacunnet with two straight losses to Dover and Keene.  The Marauders came in with a gaudy 3-0-0 record and opened the tournament looking to avenge last year’s 3-0 loss in the tourney final to Bedford.

      The tournament opened with one of the prettiest goals of the year for Hanover with junior defenseman Sam Seelig taking it near end-to-end and beating goalie Jason Howe for a 1-0 lead at 4:07. Perhaps it was his feature this week as the “Hanover Hockey Hairstyle” player of the week that gave Seelig the extra spark to put the Marauders up for good unassisted.  As they have done all season, the Hanover power play came through yet again as senior captain David Lehman made it 2-0 at 9:01 on the first man advantage of the contest on assists from Matty Gardner and Elias Zinman.  However, a turnover deep in the Hanover zone at 11:04 allowed Bow to make is 2-1 on a Ryan Tobler to little brother Ben Tobler Falcon goal.

This weeks Hanover Hair Spotlight Player Sam Seelig had his first goal - must be the hair

      Not to be outdone by the Tobler brothers, hard work by Owen Stadheim to establish the fore-check led to a nifty pass to junior Charlie Plottner to make it a 3-1 advantage short-handed at 3:49 in the second period. The game remained Hanover’s to dominate with numerous scoring changes turned away by Howe until that high flying line of Stadheim, Lehman, and Zinman struck again on the power play with Lehmann’s second goal of the night to make it 4-1 at 10:56.  The Marauders completed the three goal period barrage with a Hans Williams goal from linemates Plottner and Joey Goff assisting at 8:45.

      The final period featured a goal apiece for each team with senior captain Braxton McNulty’s ripper from the point making it 6-1 on an assist from sophomore Cameron Woods with his first varsity point at 9:44.  Just before the final period ended, the Tobler boys again victimized the Marauders on their own man-up to make it a 6-2 final.

      The Marauders peppered the Falcons with 43 shots.  Goalie Harris LaRock had 11 saves for Hanover on 13 shots.

      It will be deja-vu tomorrow afternoon as the Marauders take on 3-1 Goffstown, another Division 2 team, at 2:00 pm tomorrow at JFK arena.  With the Marauders spending the night in Manchester tonight at the team hotel, we can expect a well-rested squad for tomorrow’s tilt.