Well, Hoosier Hockey Faithful, the exorcism worked - and just in time for Halloween.  In last week's edition of Game of the Week!, I called for the Penn Kingsmen to win their game against Riley with a score of 3-2, and that the Wildcats would go down scratching and clawing.  I'm feeling good because that's exactly what happened - well, except for the fact that the Wildcats failed to score those two goals I predicted. 

But hold up.  If you just glance at the score, it would seem the Kingsmen just walked out of the building with this one.

That, my friends, is not the case. 

The Riley Wildcats did as I thought they would, despite the lack of goal production, and put up a tough fight.  In fact, they out shot the Kingsmen 23 to 22.  The difference in the game was the power play.  While the Wildcats went 0-3 in power play opportunities, the Kingsmen banked 2 goals on three power play attempts.  I also have to mention that Kingsmen goalie, Connor Buell, had an outstanding effort to preserve the shutout.        

And just like that, I have climbed  back to 2-2 for the season.  Now we turn to the Game of the Week for the week of October 30th, 2017.

We've been spending a fair amount of time up North and we're headed that way again to the second largest city in Indiana, Fort Wayne.  There's always some good hockey happening in the "Summit City" and this weekend is no different as the Bishop Dwenger Saints host the Lakeshore St. Joe Warriors at the Sportzone Parkview Icehouse Friday evening at 5:50 PM (part of the Summit City High School Hockey Classic tournament). 

This game makes our Game of the Week because it's an early season power match up.  What do I mean by that?  Well, so far, Dwenger and Lakeshore have both made their claims as the teams to beat in their respective divisions.  Looking at the Fort Wayne league, Dwenger has bested every team except Homestead  on their way to a 5-1 record.  They'll get their chance to  revisit that loss to Homestead tonight (Wednesday) in a game that I fully expect Dwenger to win.  As far as Lakeshore/St. Joe goes, they've made short work of divisional opponents Adams, Riley, and Valpo, while dropping a tough game to the St. Joseph Indians.  That being said, I expect Lakeshore/St. Joe and St. Joseph to battle all season long  for the official title of "Team to Beat in Michiana" but Lakeshore is worthy to carry the title into Fort Wayne on Friday.  

So let's take a look at the teams....    

Lakeshore St. Joe Warriors

The Warriors were finally able to "slay the dragon" this past year and beat out St. Joseph (who had won the South Bend city tournament the last 6 out of 8 years) for the Michiana League championship.  They hovered in the top ten of the INHockey.net rankings all last year and should do so again this year.  Although it will be hard to replace the likes of stand out forward Reider Burgeson (78 pts) who graduated last year, the Warriors have a few playmakers already stepping up to the plate, namely Marcus Chartrand and Connor Bryant who have tallied 7 and 9 points, respectively, so far this season.  However, in addition to Burgeson, the Warriors lost eight other players from last year's roster that combined for more than 200 points of offense.  I have made the point several times this season that large roster turnovers are difficult to process for high school teams, at least early in the season.  Still, Lakeshore has done a solid job picking up right where last year's Michiana Championship team left off.   

Bishop Dwenger Saints

Eight months removed from winning the class 2A state championship, the Saints are already firmly in control of the Fort Wayne League standings with their latest victory coming against state 4A runners up, the Carroll Chargers.  On the roster side of things, Dwenger loses seven skaters inlcuding Jared Lamothe (99 pts) and Jacob Yehle (54 pts) and goal tender Ron Frank.  But this year's early season standouts, Louie Knipscheer (8 pts), Luke McClung (5 pts) and Michael Zaremba (6 pts) have kept the offense firing on all cylinders.  Additionally, new goal tender, Steven Vlot (.901 SV%), seems to be an upgrade between the pipes thus far into the season.  I should mention that Dwenger's tournament schedule is absolutely brutal this weekend with games against Lakeshore, Central Indiana, Zionsville, and Crown Point.  Yikes!    

Now we ask the proverbial question, "Who wins the game?"

I'm not sure why I keep picking the tough games.  I really should find the easiest game and ride off into the sunset.  But that's no fun is it?  It's much better to stick my fingers right down into the muddy waters and see if I can pick a winner.  

Looking back last year at this early season meet up, Dwenger trotted on over to Compton family and laid the sweet smack down on Lakeshore with a 5-2 win.  That was an early season wake up call for the Warriors who went on to win 12 of their next 14 games.  But this is a new season and we're a month later than last year when the two teams met (which was October 9th) so the teams should have a little more consistency in their play as we start November.  With that in mind, I think this one is going to be close...like "fading seconds of the third period close."  Yet one team must emerge as the victor (you know how I hate ties).  So once the smoke clears and the final buzzer sounds, I expect the Saints will be marching in Fort Wayne, celebrating a 2-1 win over the Warriors.

There you have it, Hoosier Hockey Faithful.  The Bishop Dwenger Saints are my team this week.  You heard it here first!