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As expected, Mission Black Ice 93 and the Mississauga Mission Rattlers reached the Bantam Platinum finals, with Black Ice winning 4-3.

The Colorado Kodiaks won the bronze medal, which you could think of as the gold medal for the rest of the field, because no one was in the same class as the Rattlers or Black Ice.

My son’s team, Revision Devil Dogs, had a killer draw: three of their four round-robin games were against the three medal-winning teams. They tied the Kodiaks and lost the other two.

Had they been able to beat the Kodiaks — and the Kodiaks’ goalie made a tough save at the final horn — the Devil Dogs would have advanced to the playoff round and the Kodiaks would have been ousted.

Final thoughts

In a way, I’d like my son to win every tournament he plays because I want him to be happy, but in another way, I don’t really care about winning at all. It’s not the important thing.

If it was, the right thing to do would have been to play Gold instead of Platinum, but by doing that, the team would never really know how good they are.

I’m proud of the boys for having the heart to play against the best teams, even if it meant going home without the medal they might have won playing Gold.

All of the kids have been playing hockey long enough. They have lots of medals.

To me, it doesn’t make sense to stop trying to get better just to pick up one more medal.

My son turned 17 today at the NARCh tournament in San Jose and he went with his teammates to Applebee’s for dinner.

The boys know that he doesn’t like to be the center of attention for things like having “Happy Birthday” sung for him in a restaurant so I’m sure they made every effort to prevent that from happening . . .

Two more round-robin games on Day 2 . . .

Game 3 – Mississauga Mission Rattlers

Remember when I said Mission Black Ice is the best 16-and-under team I’ve ever seen? I may have spoken too soon on that.

I’ll be shocked if the Rattlers and Black Ice don’t face each other in the final to find out which team is really the best in the universe.

The Devil Dog goalie was great yesterday but not today. He gave up eight goals, should have stopped about five of them, but didn’t get much help from his teammates either.

Final Score: Rattlers 8, Devil Dogs 0. Ouch.

Game 4 – Colorado Dynamite

Both teams came into the game with a good chance of slipping in to the playoff round as the fifth and final seed with a victory.

It was a very even game — too even. The game ended in a tie, which eliminated both teams from the tournament.

Final Score: Devil Dogs 3, Dynamite 3

Day 2 Wrapup

I thought the boys did great for their first time playing Platinum at the NARCh level.

They’re not ready to win it yet but they I think they showed that they belong, and they got a chance to see what it takes to be the best in the land at their sport.

As a team, there are things that they need to improve on and individually, they need to get stronger and faster.

There are two teams — Black Ice and Mississauga Rattlers — that look clearly better than any other team in the 16-and-under age group. Unfortunately, the luck of the draw had the Devil Dogs playing both of them in round-robin games.

Except for those two teams, it looked like the Dogs could compete with anyone. They were one goal away from making the playoff round, had they been able to win one of the two games they tied.

I really enjoyed watching the kids play this season.

Casey’s been teammates with most of these kids for three years now. They’ve improved as players from A to AA and now AAA.

A couple of kids who as recently as last year were the poster boys for not having your head in the game — on or off the rink — have actually developed some leadership qualities, so they’ve improved at things other than hockey as well.

That’s it. See you next season . . .

The Devil Dogs played two round-robin games on Day 1 . . .

Game 1 – Mission Black Ice 93

Black Ice is from New York. They’re a great team. Best 16-and-under team I’ve ever seen. In fact, they’re better than any 18-and-under team I’ve ever seen. What a juggernaut!

The Devil Dog kids looked nervous. They looked tight. They didn’t handle the puck cleanly.

Black Ice was ahead 3-0 after the first period. The Dogs tightened things up and played a scoreless second period.

I wanted to say something encouraging to my boy after the game. “You played them even the second period,” I said.

“No we didn’t,” he replied.

“Well . . . on the scoreboard you did.”

Final Score: Black Ice 3, Devil Dogs 0

Game 2 – Colorado Kodiaks

The Dogs matched up better physically with the Kodiaks than with Black Ice although the Kodiaks also had some incredibly fast players.

The Kodiaks went ahead 2-1 with about three minutes left in the game when a player tipped in a shot in front of the net.

The shot was high. Sean, the Devil Dog goalie, thought it was too high — you’re not allowed to tip a shot that’s above the crossbar — but the referee disagreed.

Sean was mad. He took a swing at the puck like he wanted to fling it into outer space, whiffed it, and smacked the referee in the foot.

Normally when you smack a referee with your stick, you’re going to get a penalty. The ref stared at him for a long time, told him to calm down, but didn’t call the penalty.

Thanks, ref!

A couple of minutes later, with less than a minute left in the game, the Dogs scored a late goal to tie the game.

Final Score: Devil Dogs 2, Kodiaks 2

Day 1 Wrapup

Black Ice played their second game against The Gong Show, the best team in Northern California. Black Ice won 10-2.

The Kodiaks played their second game against another California team, Mission Axiom, winning 6-1.

The Devil Dogs are playing Platinum for the first time and didn’t get a lot of respect in the draw.

Based on Day 1 results, it looks like the best teams in the division are Black Ice, Kodiaks and Mississauga Mission Rattlers. The Dogs played two of those teams already and their next game is against the Rattlers.

I think the Dogs are pretty obviously better than The Gong Show and Mission Axiom, but they’re not going to play either of those teams.

They should make the playoff round if they win their final two round robin games but that is not going to be easy . . .

The tournament is off to a bad start and the boys haven’t even taken the rink yet.

One boy showed up yesterday with a 103 fever. I’m hearing this morning that his parents took him to urgent care. Nobody knows right now if he’s going to be able to play.

Hang on, it gets worse.

I don’t know who knows it yet but another boy went home late last night. His mom, who wasn’t at the tournament, died in her sleep. She wasn’t the healthiest person but she was about the same age as I am and wasn’t expected to die.

I heard about it this morning from one of the other dads, who’s a friend of their family. He heard about it last night when the boy’s dad woke him up with a phone call.

My son doesn’t know about it yet. He’s still asleep.

I’m trying to think if any of his friends have lost a parent before. I can’t think of anyone.

I wish my wife was here. She’s 10 times better than me at dealing with people and situations. She’d do and say the right things without even having to think about it.

What a shock. Rest in peace.

We’re heading out tomorrow morning for NARCh in San Jose — the grand finale, end-of-the-season roller hockey tournament.

The tournament’s actually been going on for a week and a half but Casey’s division — Bantam Platinum — doesn’t start till Tuesday. Bantam is the 16-and-under division, with a DOB cutoff date of December 31, so this season’s Bantam players are kids born in 1993 or 1994.

The Platinum division is the AAA division. Most tournaments call the skill divisions A, AA and AAA, but NARCh calls them Silver, Gold and Platinum. So Bantam Platinum is 16-and-under AAA.

In order to play at the NARCh final, your team has to play in a regional qualifying tournament. Based on your results in the qualifier, the tournament committee either assigns you to the Silver, Gold or Platinum division, or — if it’s a close call — they assign you to two divisions and let you pick which one you want to play in.

That’s what happened with Casey’s team, Revision Devil Dogs. They seeded Platinum/Gold in the qualifier and elected to play Platinum. Three other Bantam teams at the Irvine regional also seeded Platinum/Gold and they all elected to play Gold.

Since the Bantam Gold division played last week, we already know how those three teams fared:

• AKS 93 – Eliminated in the round-robin competition.
• Reebok Jr. Ducks Eschelon – Seeded third after round-robin games. Lost in the quarterfinals.
• Tour Raw Steel 94 OG – Seeded seventh. Won the tournament in a 1-0 final vs. Tour Outcasts 94, an Arizona team.

Should the Devil Dogs have elected to play Gold instead of Platinum?

I have to say I’ve never heard of a team seeding Platinum/Gold and deciding to play Platinum. The obvious line of thinking is “Let’s play Gold because we’ll have a better chance of winning.”

But that logic is being employed at regional qualifiers all over the U.S. and Canada. Most teams don’t want to play Platinum if they can play Gold instead.

So the Gold division is easier to win than Platinum but you’re still going to have to beat out a lot of good teams that could have played Platinum but didn’t. If you think you’re just going to show up and collect your medal, you’re wrong.

I think the Devil Dog kids are making the right decision.

They’ve come to a fork in the road. They can stay where they’re at and be AA players forever or they can challenge themselves to compete at the highest level of their sport, even if they don’t light the Platinum division on fire the first time they show up to play it.

It’s an honor to play Platinum.

“It’s not an honor if we get killed every game,” Casey says.

He already knows that Raw Steel won the Bantam Gold division and that Raw Steel and Devil Dogs are pretty equal teams. (The Devil Dogs lost the finals of the Irvine qualifier to Raw Steel in overtime, 2-1.)

“We could have won Bantam Gold,” he says.

“You could have won it,” I reply, “but that doesn’t mean you would have won it. Raw Steel seeded seventh so there were at least six other teams in there that had just as good a chance to win it.”

“We would have won it,” he says. Now he’s trying to be funny.

I’ve got my fingers crossed for these kids. I think (hope) they’re capable of being competitive and maybe stealing a game or two . . .

Last weekend’s WIHA roller hockey tournament in Irvine brings us a lesson in hubris . . .

My kid plays for Revision Devil Dogs, a 16U AA team. Unfortunately, the 16U teams showing up for WIHA tournaments this season haven’t been providing a lot of competition for the boys so they’ve played up the last couple of tournaments in the 18U AA division.

In this one, they found themselves in a situation where if they won their fourth and final round-robin game against AKS by at least two goals, they’d finish in a three-way tie for second and would, based on a complex tie-break formula including goals against, get to play in the final.

A Devil Dog loss, tie or even a one-goal victory would put AKS in the final.

AKS is a good team. They beat the Devil Dogs easily in a tournament in February and seemed to be clowning around the whole time. I’m sure they gave zero thought to the possibility of losing this game.

The AKS coach obviously hadn’t bothered to work through the tie-break scenario because after coming back from 5-2 down to 5-4, he pulled his goalie with about a minute left in the game, allowing a Devil Dog player to score an empty-net goal with 11 seconds left and knock AKS out of the final with a 6-4 win.

The Dogs lost the final 2-1 to top-seeded Reebok HB — still a good result for playing up in a higher age bracket.

Next up: NARCh regional qualifier in two weeks.

Semifinal

This one was like a replay of the third round-robin game.

Final Score: West Coast Warriors 2, Devil Dogs 0

“They couldn’t buy a goal,” one of the moms said.

“Are you allowed to buy goals?” I asked.

“We need to make a new rule for that,” she said.

The Warriors went on to lose 5-1 to NorCal Riot Black in the 16U final. That score surprised me, since NorCal couldn’t score on the Devil Dogs and the Devil Dogs couldn’t score on West Coast.

I’ve got to find out if any parents stayed to watch the final. How did NorCal get 5 goals on the West Coast boys? Whatever they did, the Devil Dogs should start doing it . . .

Game 4

The Devil Dogs are running into hot goalies. They’ve been shut out two games in a row, this one a scoreless tie against undefeated NorCal Riot Black.

Final Score: Devil Dogs 0, NorCal Riot Black 0

The tie is good enough to put the Dogs in tomorrow’s single-elimination round against the West Coast Warriors — who beat them yesterday — with the winner playing NorCal Riot Black in the final.

Game 3

The West Coast Warriors are a team of big kids from British Columbia. The Devil Dogs had some trouble dealing with their size and speed. And the Warriors’ goalie played a great game.

Final Score: West Coast Warriors 2, Devil Dogs 0

The final round-robin games are scheduled for tomorrow. Depending on how things go, the Devil Dogs could be the top-seed for the single-elimination round or they could get knocked out of the tournament. Their game is against NorCal Riot Black, who are undefeated at 3-0.

Game 1

Everybody wants to score goals; nobody wants to play defense. Everybody wants to make a big play; nobody wants to make the little plays.

The kids came out too revved up, made a lot of mistakes and were fortunate to win the game.

Final Score: Devil Dogs 5, Silicon Valley Quakes 3

Game 2

The boys calmed down and played the best game I’ve ever seen them play — and I see every game.

Final Score: Devil Dogs 4, NorCal Riot Red 0

Two round-robin games left, against what look like stronger teams.

Some of the hockey moms here at the tournament went to see The Proposal and are giving it rave reviews — “Classic Sandra Bullock!” Blah blah blah . . .

“Sandra Bullock used to be pretty cute,” I say, “but now she looks like a guy, don’t you think?”

“Are you kidding?! For 45, she looks amazing!“

When I unscrunch my hard-earned dollar bills to see a movie, I want more than “looks good for 45.” I can get “looks good for 45″ at home . . .

The Devil Dogs would have liked to be playing today but weren’t after last night’s 2-1 quarterfinal defeat to the Cougars.

In the semifinals, the #5 seed Cougars got smoked 6-1 by the #2 seed Detroit Mission Stars 92, while the #1 seed Adrenaline, another Michigan team, beat the #6 seed ISCA Grizzlies from New Jersey 10-4.

In the final, the Stars beat Adrenaline 5-2 to win the gold medal. As the highest-seeded semifinal loser, the Cougars earned the bronze medal.

Everyone who’s played a sport for a while has been on the wrong end of last-minute losses. If you can’t take the occasional tough loss, you always have the option of not playing the sport.

But I have to admit that the coaching decisions at the end of last night’s game are going to haunt me for a while. Putting the wrong team on the rink in the last minute cost the team a medal. In my opinion.

Notice that I’m saying the right players weren’t in the game — not the “best” players — because different players are best in different situations. Are you ahead? Are you behind? Are you tied? That determines who should be on the rink.

For example, if you’re protecting a one-goal lead, having your big, fast guys on the bench in favor of smaller guys and scorers does not give you the best chance to win the game. In fact, it gives you the best chance to lose the game. If you’d been next to me with a minute left in that game, you would have heard me say that exact thing: “They’ve got the wrong lineup out there.”

Casey was crushed by losing the game in the last minute and doubly crushed by having to watch it from the bench. You can’t know what would have happened had he been in the game, but in his heart, he knows what would have happened.

Team chemistry on the Devil Dogs was really good this season. Some of the boys are model young men and some aren’t, but as a group, they were a team in the best sense of the word. Most of the boys were in the hotel lobby last night till 2 a.m. talking amongst themselves and with a few kids from another team. They’ll bounce back. They’ve bounced back most of the way already . . .

Quarterfinals: The Devil Dogs led 1-0 most of the game, but gave up two goals in the last minute to lose 2-1. They’re out of the tournament.

My son was crying after the game when he came out of the locker room — not weeping, but he had tears in his eyes. Don’t tell him I told you. He never cries after games. I was this close to crying myself when I saw him.

I’m now going to violate my policy of never questioning coaches’ decisions. Hockey’s a team game, but if I’m going to lose a game in the last minute, I’m going to lose it with my strongest players on the rink.

I was looking out there with a minute left and a 1-0 lead and I couldn’t see how having the two biggest, fastest kids on the bench gave the team the best chance to win that game. The fact that one of those kids is my kid may be clouding my judgment but I don’t think so.

The last-minute goals came on defensive mistakes. The Dogs have a good goalie who can stop the kind of shots he faced in the last minute, as long as you don’t let kids on the other team stand in front of the net and tip them. It’s not that complicated. Would having different players on the rink prevented those goals from being scored? I say yes, but again, I admit that I’m not totally objective.

It’s pretty sad around here right now . . .

Seedings are up for single-elimination. Devil Dogs seeded #4 and will play the #5 seed New Jersey Cougars tonight.

Cougars were undefeated in round-robin — two wins and two ties. The ties were strange: they tied the #2 seed Detroit Mission Stars 92, but they also tied a not-so-good California team that got knocked out in round-robin . . .

The Devil Dogs beat the Revision RBK Buffalo Wings Black 4-0 in the morning game. That clinched them a spot in the single-elimination round, which starts tomorrow.

In the night game, they lost to the Detroit Mission Stars 92, 4-2. The Stars were also undefeated coming in, and by winning the game, will get a better seed than the Devil Dogs in single-elimination.

A little background on age divisions in roller hockey: The Devil Dogs play in the Bantam division. You could think of it as a 16-and-under division but in roller hockey, the season runs almost year-round and the divisions are actually based on birth year.

This year’s Bantam division, for example, includes kids born in 1992 or later. Most Bantam players are 92s (born in 1992) or 93s (born in 1993) because 94s and younger can play a division lower in the PeeWee division.

When a team has a year in the name of the team — like Detroit Mission Stars 92 — it means that all the kids on the team were born in that year. One advantage of having a team with all kids born in the same year is that the team can stay together from season to season, without having some kids “age up” to the next higher age bracket.

The Devil Dogs Bantam team has only one 92 player, mostly 93s, and a few 94s playing up a division. As a result, the Stars players were a lot bigger, a lot stronger and a lot faster, but I didn’t think they were better hockey players. The game really came down to the Stars goalie outplaying the Devil Dogs goalie, who ironically had won the goalie skills competition earlier in the day.

The Dogs have to play their best game to beat a team like that because of the physical mismatch but they can do it.

They should seed somewhere in the middle of the eight-team single-elimination round, but anything can happen in single-elimination . . .

The Devil Dogs played their first two round-robin games today. In the afternoon game, they beat the Motor City Moose from Detroit, 5-3. Devil Dogs scored the first three goals, but the Moose came back to 4-3 down before the Dogs scored a late goal for the final margin.

After the game, we came back to the hotel, barbequed some burgers and hot dogs, then drove back to the arena for a 9 p.m. game against the Mission Mayhem, a local team from here in Ontario.

Devil Dogs won, 3-2. My son had a nice goal. A teammate tried to saucer a pass to him as he skated to the front of the net, but the pass stayed airborne all the way. He took a short baseball swing at it and batted it in out of the air. When an NHL player does that, it’s a definite SportsCenter Top 10, but the boy said after the game that he had that one all the way.

Tomorrow, two more round-robin games against teams from Buffalo and Detroit. Everyone says the Detroit team, the Mission Stars 92, is a very good team, so the Buffalo game tomorrow morning may determine whether the Dogs are able to advance out of the round-robin . . .

Yesterday’s team bonding activities included miniature golf, pizza and a midnight screening of Brüno, all within walking distance of the hotel.

After the movie, the kids walked to McDonalds. It was closed. The drive-thru was still open, but they didn’t have a car.

Just then — in an amazing cross-continental coincidence — Eddie, the manager of our local rink in Irvine, pulled into the drive-thru, and the kids got him to buy them all ice cream cones . . .

We’re off to Toronto for a week for NARCh. I wonder what the weather’s like in Toronto in July. At least there won’t be thunderstorms every day like the NARCh tournaments we went to in Florida.

Let me check the forecast . . .

My son and I are leaving Wednesday night for Toronto where his 16-and-under team, the Devil Dogs, is playing in the NARCh roller hockey tournament.

Do the Dogs have a chance to contend?

Short answer: I don’t know. That’s why they play the games.

Longer answer: They’re in a round-robin bracket with teams from New York, Canada and two teams from Michigan. If you get through the round-robin games and into the single-elimination rounds, anything can happen.

Let’s say Team A is good enough to beat Team B 9 games out of 10, or even 99 games out of 100. There’s still that one game that Team B wins, and in single elimination, that’s all you need.

Whether that’s good news or bad news depends on whether you’re Team A or Team B.