Northwest Chargers Hockey Association

The Northwest Chargers had a remarkable run in this year’s NIHL Wolves Cup Championships with 4 of our 11 NIHL teams winning banners, and two of our teams winning President’s Cups flags for best regular season record.

The PeeWee Gold team continued its winning ways by following up its regular season Presidents Cup banner winning the PeeWee Gold Division B Championship.   The PeeWees, led by head coach Tim Mueller and assistant coach Troy Mueller, won the Cup beating Peoria 5 – 0. Connor Kelly was named MVP of the Championship game.

Another year and another championship for Coach Rich Kuzmeski.  Congratulations to Rich Kuzmeski's Mite Silver team who won the Mite Silver A championship game 4-3 against the Admirals. A special recognition to Mattix Matusiak who was named the game’s most valuable player.

In a game that most likely will go down in the NIHL record books, Gregg Lee's Midget NIHL team lost a heartbreaker 3-2 in the Midget Elite B Championship against the Vikings. The game went into the early morning hours and was finally decided in quadruple overtime.  The Midget NIHL team had a remarkable run this past year winning the President’s Cup banner with a 26-1 regular season record.

Lastly, Billy Martin’s team found success in Billy’s first year back with the Chargers.   Mite #2 won their 3rd place NIHL game 4-0 versus Northbrook.  With a well balanced offense and smothering defensive play, the Mites rolled to victory in their season finale.

Congratulations to everybody on this year’s NIHL successes.

The Mite NIHL Silver team played 3 games on their way to winning the Silver Stick Regional Championship.  The first game played against the Admirals was a nail biter ending in a 2-2 tie.  The mites had a two goal lead with 6 minutes left in the game.  Then the Admirals got their mojo going and scored two with the tying goal scored with 2 minutes left in the game. 

The Chargers got things back on track beating the Bruins 4 -1 in the next game.  Mattix Matusiak, we hear, was the star of the game.      

The third game was against an opponent they had met 4 times already this season.  Aided by some outstanding net minding by goalie Jake Pullam, they beat the Leafs 4-2.

Their opponent in the championship game was the Admirals.  It was a shaky start with the Chargers giving up a goal in the first period.  After some well chosen words of encouragement from Coach Rich, the team rallied to win the championship with a score of 4-1.  Again Jake was stellar between the pipes along with more great play by Mattix.  A big “Way to Go” for some great defensive play by D’s Max Matthew, Trey Sluga, and William Kenney for limiting the opponents to very few scoring opportunities. 

Congratulations to the entire Silver Mite team and the coaches for their successful team performance and winning the “2012 Illinois Regional Silver Sticks Tournament”!  

Check out this year's first and second addition of  the Charger Chatter news letter.