Photo Credit CPH

Program Director Jeff Holdenrid is a busy person running CPH, and takes us through the hectic past week of the team. Notice the work done by each level and the support everyone in the program has for one another, that dedication is consistent and serves as a model for other programs around the country.

“A busy weekend for our CPH family. We had Tier 1 in Dallas at the CCM event, 14UAA in Clarksville TN, and the 12UA, 12UAA, 14UA and 16UAA were beach bound in Charleston SC. This was what we refer to as a power weekend. It has always been a CPH goal to keep teams together as much as possible and we were able to do that this weekend. Picture after picture of players supporting the other teams. Cheering from the bleachers, and even coordinating a player’s favorite playing knee hockey in the hotel. Let’s dive into the highlight of the weekend.

15UAAA

This team traveled to Dallas for the 200X85 CCM tournament and CPH would not disappoint, coming home with the Championship banner. Teams from all over the United States made their way to the Lone Star state to compete. CPH’s first match up was with Philadelphia Youth Hockey Club. Getting out to a 4-1 lead in this game, PHC would batte back to make this a 4-4 tie. This tie would prove to be a very good learning lesson for the 15U CPH team on the importance of playing a full game. Later that day the matchup was with the West Dundee Leafs and CPH would come out with the victory 3-1. Starting out on Sunday CPH would finish the pool play with another win against MHA 5-0. Moving onto the playoff portion of the event CPH would find themselves in the 3rd seed. First game of the quarter finals was against the 6th seed Westchester Express, they say team work makes the dream work, and that was true in this 5-1 win for CPH. Semi-final matchup Monday morningwould be between CPH and the Utah Jr Grizzlies, who had just upset Team Philadelphia. This game would end with a CPH shutout win 3-0. Off to the Finals. Orange County HC the #1 seeded team after pool play and the CPH the #3 seed. East meets West battle royal. This was such an exciting game with both teams fighting hard for goals. Great players, great goaltending, and just great hockey. One team would score and the other would shortly answer. Back and forth battle, until the third period, Coach Troy Schwab and Assistants had their team dialed in and CPH landed two unanswered goals in the 3rd to claim victory and win the championship. A very good weekend of development from the whole team. Multiple players stepped in throughout the weekend. Cade Kinnear would take home the Hungry Howies MVP of the tournament!

16UAA

CPH got off to a slow start on the weekend. With a tie and a loss on day 1, they left feeling like they should have had better results. The team regrouped and  did come back and have two strong performances with a win against the Rage and tie with the Charleston Stingrays. Some great performances from the whole team throughout the weekend. Still falling short of the ultimate goal of going to the championship and winning the first banner of the year. CPH showed a lot of resilience this past weekend.  Compete levels were high and they look forward to carrying this momentum into the next weekend. CPH

12UAA

CPH 12UAA traveled to Charleston SC for their 1st tournament of the 23/24 season. It was a great weekend of hockey and team building for the group. The weekend started off with a nail biting 1-0 victory against the Jr Canes 12u AA team. Max Petrie netted the rebound from an Evan Branecky shot with just 18 seconds remaining in the game, and Jacob Hinckley posted the shutout. CPH ran into two tough teams in game 2 & 3 losing to Jacksonville & Charleston by a score of 5-1 in both games. The final game, a rematch against the Jr Canes didn’t disappoint. Down 1-0 and 3-2, CPH showed their resilience battling back to a 3-3 tie. The highlight of the weekend however would surely have to be the number of teams the CPH program had on site supporting each other, and an honorable mention to the amazing hotel accommodations who provided a designated knee hockey room for the kids!

12UA

This team competed against two very skilled teams in Tampa and the Canes. They were in both games after the first period and competed hard in the third. The second period was not their best period in these two games and they paid for it on the scoreboard.  There was improvement in the D-Zone positioning. The team was determined to get their first win of the season this weekend and did succeed, in a hard fought 1-0 game. Scores don’t ever tell the complete story, the last game of the weekend was a loss, but the coaching staff agreed these kids played the best game of their season. They generated plenty of scoring chances and tilted the ice in their favor. At times they had their best offensive pressure of the season and the defense stood strong at the blue line keeping plays alive for offense to generate scoring chances. There were improvements on the ice this weekend, the team is maturing and progressing in the right direction. 

14UA

14UA had mixed results this past weekend at the Palmetto Fall Classic in Charleston. The team continued their upward trajectory and played 4 solid games, but the pucks did not bounce their way as they ended the tournament with an 0-3-1 record.  They managed a 2-2 tie in a physical game against the Jacksonville Jr Icemen to kick off the tournament. The next game was a devastating loss as the Raleigh Raptors scored 2 goals in the last minute with the goalie pulled to come from behind and beat CPH 4-3. In the 3rd game, CPH gave the eventual tournament champions, the Richmond Generals, their toughest test of the weekend. CPH cut the Richmond lead to 2-1 in the 2nd period, but Richmond scored with 3 seconds left in the period to put the game away and went on to win 5-1. The consolation game against the Raptors was a back and forth battle that CPH lost 4-3 on a late Raptors goal. Despite the record, 14u played some great team hockey and came out of the weekend with a lot of good things to build on.

14UAA

Traveling to Tennessee is always an interesting one for the Carolina teams. CPH found themselves in Clarksville which is approximately one hour north of Nashville playing in the show tournament. It is always a pleasure playing in a new arena and this one did not disappoint. Beautiful facility with two sheets of ice and main rink being F&M Bank arena with a capacity of 5000. Opening game was against a much larger Music City Marauders team. The CPH team would stand their ground and push back to make this a close game. The marauders would pull out the win in the end 3-2. Saturday morning CPH would meet up with another Carolina team and the NC Golden Bears. A one sided game and victory for CPH with the final of 6-0 and a nice shutout for Kirill Zeziulevich. An interesting turn of events in this one when the fire alarm went off and the kids had to leave the ice and building with 2 minutes to go in the 2nd period. Luckily this was a minor setback and play resumed after about 20-30 minutes. Game three was a must win for CPH to advance to the finals. The Knoxville Jr Ice Bears came to play and outscored CPH 7-4. Lots of scoring from both sides in that battle. The final game of the weekend was a rematch with the NC Golden Bears and CPH would finish the weekend with another win and final score of 6-4. This team is progressing in the right direction, and they know there are good things to come.”