Lakewood Places Two Peewee Teams in State Hockey Finals
Home and Away in State Finals
The Cleveland Warriors are the birth-year based program of the Winterhurst Hockey Association located in Lakewood, Ohio. The "Warrior" program was initiated with the intent of creating teams based on single birth years, with the goal of placing competitive teams into the USA Hockey State and District Championships. This program has been part of the Winterhurst Hockey Association for three seasons and in early March they achieved success when not only one, but both of their Peewee teams, (players born in 1996) qualified for the Ohio State Championship game. The Cleveland Warrior "Gold" team, coached by Jeff Tyhulski, won the game over the Cleveland Warrior "Black" team, coached by Jason Hicar, by a score of 4-1. Both teams reached the finals after winning preliminary spots in the final knock-downs where the Gold’s defeated Rocky River's PWAA team, and the Blacks defeated the Toledo Cherokees.
Placing a single team in the State Final is typically considered a success for any organization, but placing TWO teams is extraordinary. It is believed that this has never occurred in the Ohio State Championships, which were started in the 1970s and established under USA Hockey in 1987.
The concept of single birth-year teams has been discussed in the Cleveland hockey community for many years. Winterhurst Hockey Association made a leadership decision to adopt these teams as a separate Cleveland Warrior program in 2006. The plan was formed by Ron Short of the North Olmsted Hockey Association and the Cleveland Suburban Hockey League. After it was welcomed by the WHA board, the program has grown successfully over the last three seasons. Last season, (2007-08), the Cleveland Warriors placed two teams (birth year 1993 and 1998) into state finals. The 1998s won the championship but the 1993s fell short.
This season the Warrior program was comprised of teams for birth year 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996 and 1995. It was only at the 1996 level that enough quality skaters were available to form two teams. It is expected that numbers will increase at the other birth year’s tryouts and that they may soon field two teams at other birth year levels. Tryouts for these teams are in April, and this season they will add teams at the 2000 birth year level to give them over seven teams. Many players who do not qualify for one of these birth year teams typically compete on one of the Winterhurst Hockey Association's "mixed" teams. The mixed players compete on teams comprised of two birth years in the traditional Bantam, Peewee, and Squirt brackets in the Cleveland Suburban Hockey League.
The Winterhurst Hockey Association practices and plays out of Serpentini Arena in Lakewood, OH, (formerly Winterhurst Ice Rink). For this past season, a good number of these teams competed for the first time in the Little Caesar's Amateur Hockey League in Detroit, MI.