Owen Lundin and Deverin Warner lead team and skaters in scoring at SoCal FreezeOut
Players from across North America just converged on El Segundo and Lakewood, Calif., for the SoCal Freeze Out on July 14 – 17, part of The Brick Series of spring and summer tournaments.
Billed as a “destination” tournament, the SoCal Freeze Out brought together 12 teams for some impressive hockey action and, you know, plenty of fun away from the rink when you consider the famous beaches, Hollywood, Disney, Universal, Six Flags, Rodeo Dr., etc…
Run independent of, but affiliated with The Brick Invitational, The Brick Series is an invite-only set of tournaments to help players prepare for The Brick and “build on The Brick experience after Edmonton.” The core group of programs — the Jr. Bruins, BC Canucks, Pro Hockey Development Group, Minnesota Blades, Connecticut Jr. Rangers, Illinois Selects, Spartan Alberta, HD Engine, Manitoba All-Stars, Western Selects and Northstar Elite — welcome a select few other programs in for the series as they play tournaments leading up The Brick and in the following years.
Note that one of the teams listed above — the CT Junior Rangers — just won their third straight Brick tournament in Edmonton.
For the SoCal tournament, it was the Jr. Bruins Gold prevailing in the title contest. They took down Pro Hockey SoCal 5-2 to win it all, capping a 6-1-0 weekend for the Bruins.
The Boston gang started the tournament with a 8-3 win over Vancouver on Thursday morning, before dropping a game to the Illinois Selects 4-2 three hours later.
That was the only game the Bruins would lose, as they rebounded with a 5-0 blanking of Northstar Elite Friday morning and a 6-5 win over PHD East Saturday morning.
Saturday afternoon marked the start of the playoffs, and that’s where the Bruins found their revenge, beating Illinois 7-2 to make up for the loss earlier in the weekend.
From there, Boston took care of the Western Selects 10-5 in the semifinals before the aforementioned win over Pro Hockey in the final.
Owen Lundin led the Bruins in scoring in the tournament, recording 18 points in seven games. Deverin Warner was second with 15 points, while Evan Vulkelic had 13 and Andrew Martineau had 11.
Enzo Stefanovski took care of goaltending duties. The tournament didn’t keep goalie-specific statistics, but if he played in all seven games, that means he finished with an even 3.00 goals-against average.
Nash Wilford of the Western Selects led the tournament in scoring overall, as he posted a dominating 19 points in only six games. Parker Colmer of HD Engine had 17 points in only five games to win the unofficial points-per-game scoring crown, however, as he registered 3.40 points-per-game to Wilford’s 3.17.
Ben Slavick of Pro Hockey SoCal registered 14 points in seven games, leading the runners-up in scoring. Chase Schulberger had eight points from the blue line for Pro Hockey, which was coached by former NHL star Ryan Kesler.
This was the seventh event in The Brick Series this spring/summer, but first and only for the 2010 birth year. The 2008s were slated to participate in a tournament in Atlantic City this week, but the event was postponed after the host rink closed up shop.
