D-3 Challenge Pictures

A few shots of the West Michigan teams that participated in the D-3 challenge. I'm woefully short of quality shots of Cadillac and Big Rapids, but did touch base with some fans of those teams and hope to get more. A few observations from the Showcase:

GRCC's LINE CHANGE: Even though Cougars Kevin Boman, Clayton Brackett and John Dery have played together for years, the three haven't played as a line much until this weekend. Putting them together gives Catholic a line that will be very tough for other teams to defend. Think Henrik Zetterberg-Ilya Kovalchuk-Jarome Iginla playing on the same line. Boman is a natural scorer who handles the puck extremely well and is deceptively strong on his skates. Brackett has blazing speed, a slapshot up around 90 mph and plays with reckless abandon. Dery is just a beast at 6'2" and he has an exceptional wrist shot that allows him to pick the corners. They will be a force to be reckoned with if Coach Al Kranzo keeps them together.

PIONEERS PROGRESS: While East Grand Rapids still searches for the first win of its season, and the first of new coach Joe Day's tenure there, they should put their two losses into context. On Friday, they lost 2-1 to a Riverview team that is undefeated and ranked 5th in D-3. Then on Saturday, they got beat 5-2 to a Flint Powers team that has lost only once and is ranked 9th in D-3. After getting down 4-0 early, the Pioneers won the last two periods against Powers. The weekend was a breakout for sophomore Drew O'Brien and junior Joe Glendenning, who seems to be getting his hockey legs under him after leading the EGR football team to a state championship. The two combined for all three goals EGR scored (O'Brien 2 g/1a = 3 pts; Glendenning 1 g/2a = 3 pts) and played with a lot of jump.

CARDINALS GROWING UP FAST: Big Rapids had two tough games against Detroit area teams, and the young Cardinal team continues to learn lessons. In both games, Big Rapids took 1-0 leads into the second period, only to lose the leads before mounting a furious comeback effort in the third period. The Cardinals are young with a line of all sophomores, one line of all freshmen and another line that is mixed. Plus, they’ve played excellent competition, including five Top 10 teams in the state, and have Wyandotte and GRCC on the schedule in the near future.