SENIOR NIGHT

     With a big, partisan Senior night crowd in attendance at Campion, the Hanover Marauders finished off their 2017-18 regular season campaign with a convincing 5-0 win against the 4-13 Bishop Brady Giants Saturday night.  With the win, Dick Dodd’s boys completed NHIAA Division 1 play with a 15-3 record (18-4 overall) and clinched the second overall seed in the upcoming state tournament.

      It was a very special night, as the four Hanover seniors – Peter Warhold, Harris LaRock, Braxton McNulty and David Lehmann were honored in a pre-game ceremony with flowers, on-ice parent hugs and posters filled with photos in the lobby that showed the boys in all stages of their hockey careers.  Adding to the nostalgia on the night was that the Hanover girls team had their senior night just before – so lots of hugs and well wishes to go around.

David Lehmann

Harris LaRock

      Interrupting all of the festivities however was a hockey game to be played, so with a little bit of a lump of sadness in their parent’s throats, the four senior starters took the ice for the last time in the regular season and then the puck dropped.  And make no mistake, this was an important game because throughout New Hampshire this evening, players, coaches and fans of NHIAA hockey were watching closely to see where the final seedings would land.  For Hanover, which was locked in a second place tie with Pinkerton (but owned the tiebreaker due to head-to-head) this was a critical contest to lock up the second seed.

      So perhaps the Marauders were thinking about the cake and punch waiting for them post-game in the locker room or looking forward to the traditional senior skate around the rink following the last regular season game, but the first half of the first period was dominated by the Giants.  However, it was LaRock, and his legendary pink stick tape, that stoned the Giants on a several good scoring chances in deep early.  Finally at 10:38, sophomore sensation Owen Stadheim took a behind–the-net pass from Joey Goff (from Sy Oberting) in the mid slot and finished past Brady goalie Nathaniel Pushee for a 1-0 Hanover lead.  It was all they would need.

Peter Warhold

Braxton McNulty

      As they have for the most part all season, the Marauders came out for the second determined to put the game out of reach early.  After several good opportunities thwarted by Pushee, a blast from the right point from McNulty found a screening Cameron Woods in front to put Hanover up 2-0 five minutes in.  With a back and forth between the two squads throughout the middle of the period featuring man-up opportunities from both, Woods finally scored that all important third goal, nicely controlling a McNulty saucer pass at the offensive blue line on the man-down and skating it in on Pushee for a 3-0 lead.  If there was one aspect of the game which went especially well for Hanover tonight, it was their special teams, and Stadheim put Hanover up 4-0 again on the man-down at 13:21 when he took advantage of an unfortunately timed defensive zone Giant broken stick to steal the puck and go in untouched.

      The third period had Lehmann firing in his last regular season goal of his career to make it 5-0 at 3:30 off a nice across the slot pass from Goff.  Despite being up a bunch, Hanover kept pushing and it was Warhold’s nice deke at the blue line to go wide that almost had the senior hitting the score sheet with the best opportunity to finish the third.

      With his fifth shutout of the year, LaRock had 10 saves and tied the Hanover High record for the most shutouts in a season – maybe all of the Marauders should adopt the pink stick tape moving forward. 

      Said Dodds in the Campion lobby after the game as the team milled around the senior’s posters and especially admired the sporty bifocals Harris wore as a kid, “It was a nice way to send the seniors off.  They’ve done such a nice job leading this team with the four seniors being responsible for the great chemistry of the team on and off the ice.”

      And what a successful year they have had.  In NHIAA play they outscored their opponents 76-27, by far the fewest goals allowed in Division 1 which is a credit to LaRock and the tough Hanover defense.  And the scoring output has been well-balanced, led by leading scorer Lehmann, with everyone contributing.

      So the platitudes on the regular season are nice, but now really mean nothing going forward  - as Dodds said this evening “now every team is 0-0”.  So the second, and by far the most important, season gets underway this week.  As of this writing, it was unclear whom the playoff bracket would have the Marauders facing next Saturday night for the final home game of the year.  No matter what, Campion should be amped up a week from now to welcome the underdog to town.  Rest up Marauders, stay away from the flu, and don’t forget what happened in the quarterfinals last year.