FELDY: The Interwebs couldn't have picked a worse day to stop working at the Feldman house. Three playoff hockey games in town tonight, involving all four Rochester teams, and I HAVE NO INTERNET CONNECTION!
So I'll bring you an abridged version of High School Tonight, thanks to the wonder of the Android.
The headline for this post refers to a story that hopefully most of you saw in Wednesday's Post-Bulletin. Brenda Ewing, the mother of JM senior forward Zach Ewing, is recovering from breast cancer, and hopefully most of the difficult treatments are behind her. The other seven seniors on the JM varsity got together last summer and had pink stocking hats made, with the words "JM HOCKEY" on them. They've sold then at games and at school for $15 each and have raised nearly $900, if my math is correct.
Most Rockets are also wearing pink laces in their skates, which has drawn some colorful comments from opponents, but the JM players aren't the least bit bothered.
Tonight, most of JM's players will play a home playoff game for the first time. Farmington comes to the Rec Center for a 7 pm Section 1AA quarterfinals game. JM beat Farmington by six goals in their first meeting, on Nov. 30. The Tigers have one of the top scorers in the section, though, in senior Tyler Grubb (51 points).
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JM will need to take advantage of its depth. The Rockets have three solid lines and five d-men who can be trusted in most situations. And senior goalie Bryan King is in his fourth year as a varsity player. If JM is going to make a deep playoff run, they'll need him to be a game changer.
I'm getting ready to head over to Graham Arena, where our other three Rochester teams are in action at 7 pm. Lourdes, the top seed in Section 1A, faces No.9 seed LeSueur-Henderson at Graham IV. The big game of the night is at Graham I, an intra-city showdown between Mayo and Century.
Lourdes seems like a lock to win tonight, but I'd be willing to bet that coach Josh Spaniol reminded his boys yesterday that a No.9 (St. cloud Apollo) knocked off a No.1 (Little Falls) already this postseason.
As for the big game at Graham I, it's the fourth meeting of the season between Mayo and Century. The Panthers won the first matchup, 4-2, at the Kiwanis Festival in December, but Mayo has topped Century twice in the past five weeks by a combined score of 8-0.
Can Mayo continue that trend or will Century reverse it? The biggest keys for the Panthers: stay out of the penalty box and play short shifts to stay fresh. Mayo's power play is outstanding right now and the Spartans have three lines that are clicking. If Mayo gets up early, they'll make it tough on Century to get anything going offensively.
That's it for now. I can't take much more of typing on a phone. I'll have updates from Mayo-Century on Twitter (@PBFeldy) and game results at PostBulletin.com later tonight.
