Every night should be a battle, which is what we want in order to climb that mountain towards the end of the season to make another run at our third straight national tournament appearance.” “We hope to repeat as Midwest-West Champions. “The five returners will all play pivotal roles in our success this season, said Witta, “With Captain Griffin Bourassa leading the charge, all seven players coming in with junior experience will give us the depth we will need to grind through the seven-month season,” said Witta. The list also includes ‘03’s Dylan Hender, Chase Mann, Karl Grafelman, Brendan Shaner and ‘04’s Gavin Gordon, Joseph Rosenberg, HArrison Foss, Jack Wallace, Gabe Myers and goaltender Justin Garstecki. Meanwhile, a group of 11 rookies will be looking to jump in at a high level, led by Minnesota High School state champion Tommy Babb from Andover, Minn. Witta also named seven additional players with junior hockey experience – ‘02 Jared Petty, ‘03’s Dylan Smith, Preston Cloutier, Rylee Luebbers, and ‘04’s Mike Abrego, Noah Scherff and Arseniy Malyutin.Īdditionally, Swedish imports Elias Johansson, an ‘02 goaltender, and ‘03 defenseman Jacob Ullsten, will make their debut. Returners for the Blue Ox are ‘02 defenseman and captain Griffin Bourassa, ‘02’s Marc Abrego and Zach LaMotte and ‘03’s Nate Cheney and goaltender Eli Marchese. “We have 20 new faces and five returning players coming back this season,” summed up the coach. Introductions will be in order on the first day of the pre-season though as this team looks to once again lead the Midwest West this season. “Even though we fell short of the National Championship, finishing in the top eight, we advanced 12 players to a higher level of hockey at the College and Junior level, which is a great achievement.” “Last year’s record-breaking year of 43-8-1 (including playoffs) for the Ox will be a hard season to top,” said Head Coach/GM Jay Witta who has been the team’s only Head Coach since it joined the USPHL in 2017-18. The Blue Ox have shown an improvement in each of the past four seasons and were the class of the division last year, winning all but seven of 44 contests. The four teams that have had to travel for first round matchups have cut the margin each season as parity steadily takes over in the division, most notably the Steele County Blades who have improved each season and missed out on a top four spot by just two points in 2021-22.Įvery team goes through turnover each season and there has been a little more movement this past year with new coaches and/or management on four teams, and one whole new franchise as well. While the USPHL’s Premier Midwest-West Division traditionally sees multiple changes from week to week in the standings, four teams – Minnesota Blue Ox Minnesota Moose Wisconsin Rapids Riverkings and Hudson Havoc – have finished as the division’s top four and first round playoff hosts for each of the past four seasons.
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