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Mississippi Valley Conference Hockey All-Star Game 2022
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EAST ALTON - The stars of MVCHA high school hockey were out on Tuesday night at East Alton Ice Arena, as the MVCHA All-Star Game returned to Eastgate Plaza. The Varsity Red All-Stars squared off against the Varsity Blue All-Stars, a mix of players from across the MVCHA. The offense of Red was too much for Blue to handle Tuesday night, and Red took the contest, 5-1.
“The kids had a lot of fun,” said Varsity Red head coach Scott Roberts, who has the same duties with his Freeburg/Waterloo team. “You could see that they were trying some really creative plays out there.”
Roberts’s Red side pelted goalies on the Blue team all night, amassing a whopping 56 shots on goal through 45 minutes of play. The collective efforts of Varsity Blue netminders Drew Tolbert (Bethalto), Jacob Zagorski (Collinsville), and Tim Barbee (Columbia), the latter of whom stopped 22 shots in his period of work, kept Red from running away with this one. Usually, on an occasion dominated by the offensive firepower on display, “sick dangles”, “silky mitts” were often left stonewalled by the best goaltenders in the area.
“The goalies played really well,” said Roberts. “I mean 5-1 for an All-Star Game is a pretty low-scoring game. They’re usually 15-12 or something, so a lot of that is because of the goalies out there tonight.”
While less busy on their side of the ice, Varsity Red’s goaltenders stopped 22 of 23 shots faced in this exhibition affair. Garrett Werner (Belleville), Matthew Bushee (Freeburg/Waterloo) and Michael Atkins (Granite City) manned the crease for Scott Roberts’s Red side.
Red’s goals in the game came from MVCHA points leader Logan Ganz (Freeburg/Waterloo), Brayden Richey (Freeburg/Waterloo), and Donovan Knuckles (Freeburg/Waterloo). Ganz and Knuckles both scored twice, with Knuckles scoring both his goals within thirty seconds of each other at the start of the second period.
The display shows just how explosive Freeburg/Waterloo has been offensively this season. After the MVCHA regular season’s end, the Raging Bulldogs sat 21-2-1 and led the league in goals scored with a whopping 209 in just 24 regular-season games.
The lone goal for Varsity Blue at East Alton Ice Arena tonight came by way of Bethalto’s Clayton Law, banging home a rebound from close range.
“Really these games are all about the kids having fun,” Scott Roberts said following the game. “Make sure no one gets hurt, but these kids worked their butts off all season. This is a time for them to go out and have fun.”
The fun wasn’t limited to just the All-Star Game, as a skills competition took place between periods, a mix of skating and shooting drills, and a breakaway competition where, once more, the goalies took the limelight, and few goals were scored.
Now that the fun is over, MVCHA playoff teams are getting prepared for the business end of their season, with playoff hockey less than a week away. The first MVCHA playoffs take place at East Alton Ice Arena on February 7.
