NAHL Showcase

This fall Jon is playing in the High School Elite Development League or Elite 2's. It is one step below what is now called Elite 1's. Elite 1's is mostly Seniors and Juniors with a handful of sophomores on the 8 teams. Elite 2's or Elite D is mostly sophomores with a handful of Juniors and a couple 9th graders. The league was started 15 or so years ago to provide more games to hs kids since the high school season in MN "only" is 25 games and doesn't start until end of November.

 The fall season started out the last weekend in August with a training camp and pre-season games. From that weekend, a team was selected from the 8 teams to play in the NAHL showcase the weekend of September of 19-22. Jon was one of the players selected along with his fall team mate and buddy Luke Jaycox of Warroad to play in the MN U16 team. With another big wedding going on here, Jon went down with Grandma Judy for games on Friday. I was able to sneak down on Saturday for the day and took Jens and his friend Reed. It was some incredible hockey with tons of games going on. The NAHL league had all their teams playing games plus the top U18 and U16 teams in the country were there. The stands were loaded with scouts from all leagues including college and NHL. 

Jens and Reed. The boys had fun seeing the jackets of the NHL and college scouts. One of the guys I played with in hs is now a scout with the MN Wilderness and was fun to bump in to him and talk some hockey. Bumped in to quite a few guys I have gotten to know over the years and learned a lot more about the U16 teams in the country. 

Jon's team playing the Honeybaked team from Michigan. The Honeybaked team maintained their group from last year which was the team that won the Bantam National championships. The team had one year younger players but they were actually bigger and big time high end players.

Catching one of the many NAHL games going on. The stands for all the NAHL games were packed. Even if you didn't have a kid playing in the games, there was a lot of good hockey to watch. People from all over the country and players from all over the world. First time I have seen a Mexican hockey player. A kid from Mexico City played with one of the Texan teams. He was a nice player and skated hard.

Jon with Luke when Luke was visiting us for a week and when they found out they would be playing in the Showcase.

Big thanks to Steve and Kriston Wenzel for helping out Saturday night with the wedding weekend.