THIS IS B LEAGUE.
A rainy Sunday on our (actual) last day at Waymer’s Tennis Court was short as only our Adult B Division took action due to the wet conditions. We’ve seen an influx of new talent in CSHL’s B-League from all kinds of sources: Ice players playing ball their first time, experienced roller hockey players, youth prospects moving up to our adult league, and grizzled veterans like Big John Lavella finding CSHL after decades of competitive dek hockey experience in Pittsburgh. It’s fucking awesome.
Let’s take a look back at a classic moment in B-League history: Charlottans Captain Joe Petrellese taking down (tall & handsome) CDI forward Chris Ward in their upset over the powerhouse in the Winter 2023 playoffs, followed by the net flipping over Ward and the Charlottans-favored crowd erupting.
THIS IS B LEAGUE BABY.
Let’s dive into the action from this weekend, we saw 3 games take place:
JAMES. TERJESEN. One period, three shots, one hat trick. That’s how it’s done. Carson Philemon was completely left out to dry by his defense as we saw two rebounds get put in by Terjesen to start the period. James Terjesen is the CSHL Player of the Week. Scoring a hatty in one period is insane, easy decision.
It’s Carson's first competitive game as a goalie and a Petrini, Petrellese & Ward defense needs to do better - and they did as the number of second chances was cut off after the first. We saw Nappy go full Ocean’s Eleven on Jenny after a Petrini cross-crease pass from the point left her wide-open backside. He made a diving save from the top of the paint, earning the CSHL Save of the Week.
The Charlottans finished their comeback in the third as a Tom Ward hit Joe Berg down the seam of the defense who tapped it across the crease for a weak side Petrini finish.
With the game winding down Philemon made a series of saves ending with a diving attempt to neutralize a Nick Harris chance and save the tie for the Charlottans, delivering them their first point of the season.
Nick. John. Sevs…finally stopped hitting posts:
..and floated his shot a clean 6mph past goalie John Bergner for his first of the season.
Bergie, what are we doing here? Still the best GAA in the league sitting at 2.25 (and the only shutout), but it could be better if it wasn’t for goals like this.. The NorMonsters aren’t the fastest team in the league and they won’t get to every 50/50 ball, stops like this are crucial to reaching their potential this season. This was a bad attempt from last season's MVG, the only award hardware Bergie earned today was the CSHL Not Top Play of the Week.
We have a FIRST GOAL ALERT as the NorMonsters Cynthia Clay finished a backhand five-hole on Cummings to take the lead. This is Cynthia’s first CSHL AND hockey goal as they began playing for the first time this summer in our Ballantyne league.
A quote on Cynthia’s game and progress throughout the summer season from one of her past teammates, “Even though they were new to hockey Cynthia always put themselves in good positions and made an impact. You could see progress every week in summer league and always kept the vibes high. Knew a goal was just a matter of time and I’m happy they got it!”
AJ Yasav put in another goal because that’s what he does, followed by a NicJonSevs snipe that beat Bergie in the near corner.
Sevs has a year of organized hockey under his belt (literally didn’t own a stick until 2023) but garnered a lot of preseason MVP buzz for the B Division and he’s showing why; a top-tier athlete starting to finish goals that were ringing the post last year is a scary thought. Sheridan and Mahoski chipped in with goals each for the NorMonsters, man there are a lot of shooters on that team.
Favorite shift of the game: Brad running around like an absolute maniac in the rain, fell down at least 4 times.
Back to backs are killing the B teams, as this was the second week that we saw a team get outran during their second leg. Will Sheridan kept up his scoring streak as he added two more goals to his tally giving him 4 in 4 games this season. Usually deadeye aiming low corner, Brandon Brownlow couldn’t quite find his shot in the rain as he wasn’t getting the curve he’s accustomed to on his snaps. The biggest surprise CSHL Insider has this season is the level of play we’ve seen from Waymer Cowbell and their young players. Last season we saw the Charlottans go with a young roster and it didn’t work at all. This year Steckler has the youth movement humming as we’ve seen a significant jump in play and chemistry from the group. Let’s take a look at this set play from the draw.
Nick Harris wins it perfect back to Steck
Pass across to Cole Heslin
Heslin sells the slapshot PERFECT and puts it on Karson’s tape
Karson with the perfect redirect into the near corner
This is probably the best team play we’ll see all season, so since we're in charge of the awards let's just make a new one, congrats Waymer Cowbell on the first-ever CSHL Play of the Week!
If the Cowbell are moving like this now, we can’t wait to see them on the larger court. Early MVP favorite Karson Steckler has 8 points (4G, 4A) in 4 games and we don’t see signs of him slowing down. Coming off a Summer Slapper victory where he led the (adult) tournament in assists, he’s also been dominating his basketball league this summer.
By far the most important announcement from the NBHL Carolina Division this week was regarding their All-Division teams, which featured 6 CSHL players:
First Team:
F - Bobby Arkus, RISE: 5G 2A
F - Josh Greco, Crowns: 2G 9A
D - James Forbes (MVD), Crowns: 6G 2A
Second Team:
F - Jack Ingalls, Crowns: 4G 3A
D - Drew Cswaykus, RISE: 2G 1A
G - Cale Bowman, Crowns: 2.00 GAA
These guys were elite all year. Arkus and Cswaykus carried an inexperienced Charlotte RISE team while the loaded Crowns were led by their captain Josh Greco and pseudo-defenseman James Forbes.
The NBHL’s Mylec Cup is this weekend (9/22 - 9/24), and unfortunately, the Queen City Crowns won’t be there to defend their Tier 3 title. After blowing two early leads and losing in the championship round (best of three) to the Raleigh Squall 2-0, they’re watching from home this year… Most of them that is. Due to a lack of numbers available to travel the NBHL allowed two Tier 2 teams to add T3 players to their rosters and make the trip to NJ. The players going below are:
Josh Greco - Southside Rats (Chicago T2)
Ethan Pinto - Southside Rats (Chicago T2)
James Forbes - Mass Vengeance (Mass T2)
Forbes "team" is a particularly interesting case as there was a massive controversy leading to their inclusion in the Mylec Cup this year. A refereeing error resulted in the Vengeance scoring a goal, but not really "winning" the game over the powerhouse A-Town Tropics as it only reduced the Tropics lead to 2-1. After losing game one of the three game series 8-0 they came back to win 3-2 and 4-3.
This resulted in the Massachusetts Tier 2 having three teams invited to the Mylec Cup instead of the normal two for T2 divisions of over 8 teams.
We asked the fellas some questions about their upcoming Mylec Cup and how it feels to go to NJ again or for the first time:
1. Crowns are out of the Mylec Cup this year, are you rooting for the Squall to keep T3 in the Carolina Division?
Greco - "luckily whatever I WANT to happen has no influence over what actually happens. I see it as a win-win. If the Squall win, it further legitimizes Carolina ball hockey. If they don't, the Crowns remain the only Carolina team to win the Mylec Cup. I will be pulling for some of those guys to show out on that stage - and they will, I'll be happy for them. There are also players on that team that are unrootable for."
Pinto - No.
Forbes - Yes looks good for the Carolina (Fuck the Squall and 88) division maybe going tier 2
2. Greco/Forbes - You’re playing in the MC again, obviously this time not with the Crowns. Are you excited or is it bittersweet?
Greco - I want that bus ride again! Will miss the boys. There's something different about playing in this thing without the fellas you've been battling with in the trenches the whole season. However, this is an honor to represent Charlotte in a different way. It's hockey on a big stage, I CANNOT WAIT to go have a blast this weekend. "I'm just playing hockey with these strangers" is a t-shirt I have been thinking of printing......
Forbes - Sad but excited to play again and check out the competition
3. Unfortunately the crowns didn’t make it in your first year playing NBHL, if the crowns going is a 10 on the excitement level how’s this compare?
Pinto - I’ll be pretty sad not to battle again with all the boys, but on the flip side, incredibly excited to experience this tournament. Hope to light a fire that carries into next season to help us get there again.
4. Do you think the tier 2 guys are any better than the Crowns & Squall or would you win against a lot of them?
Greco - I recoil at terms like "better than"... how do you compare? There are so many skillsets and role players that are needed to be a complete team. What I CAN tell you is the Crowns and Squall are the closest to Tier 2 teams as any Tier 3 teams can be. Playing with the talent we had in our division has prepared us for what we're about to experience in Marlton this weekend, for sure.
Pinto - It’s hard to gauge the speed of Tier 2 as opposed to Tier 3 on film, but from what I can tell, I don’t think the competition we’ll be up against will be something we’ll be unprepared for, given how intense our games against the Squall have been. Speed is one of the toughest adjustments to make, in both decision making and skill, so time will tell. Will be great to see how we stack up to the other teams.
Forbes - I think we can gauge ourselves to be tier 2 but we also have a lot more talent as a whole with the rise and crowns to be tier 2.
5. Now give a real answer if you answered something about “Well there’s a lot of great competition out here so you never know, yada yada”
Greco - Haha! The biggest difference with Tier 2 teams is the amount of experience they have playing together. A lot of these guys have been playing ball hockey their whole lives, and most have been playing with the same people or in the same division with the same people for many years, and in some cases decades. So it's not about how good a player is, it's about how their playing together makes each of those players better. And that's something that is still developing in Carolina, particularly in Charlotte.
Pinto - Yea we’ll play up to our competition no doubt.
6. How do you think an “MVP” type team of tier three guys would compete in tier two without a lot of practice together?
Greco - They'd do fine. They'd produce. They'd score and compete. The jump from Tier 2 to Tier 1 is bigger than Tier 3 to Tier 2 in my opinion.
Pinto - I am pretty confident that an all-star Tier 3 team would be more than competent in Tier 2. I think even an all star Carolina team would kill it in Tier 2.
7. Forbes team has a bit of controversy going, what are your thoughts on the NBHL allowing three teams from that division spots in the Myles Cup?
Greco - I think the controversy was so well documented and people had so many strong opinions when the controversy occurred that now it's in the past. This is actually the only division in the NBHL that has THREE teams going to Mylec Cup. For those who don't know, any division that has more than 8 teams sends the division champion AND the runner up. Mass Tier 2 has those 2 teams going PLUS the 3rd team that had the controversy (Forbes's team, the Vengeance). I think it was the right play by the NBHL to do that. Why? Not out of some sort of logical argument I could make right now about what happened... but more because I trust Anthony Sanrocco as the Commissioner of NBHL - I trust that he consulted his leaders and all the people who have handled tough situations like this in the past, and he made a decision. Whatever he would have decided would have been the right decision. Ipso facto, this was the right decision.
Pinto - Will be interesting to keep track of throughout the tournament for sure. Personally, I believe that a Ref’s decision should hold regardless of how wrong it is. We see it in the NHL often too, so not sure how the fallout will be during/after this tournament.
Forbes - Will be interesting to see how we do as we play the tier 2 Champions from last year but cant take it back now.
8. What do you like best about the CSHL NBHL programs?
Greco - I enjoy the higher level of competition. Ball hockey is so silly, and it's silly that as adults we chase this little ball around, bump into and argue with each other, and get excited about winning. It's so silly. But most of us have played kickball or dodgeball or softball or soccer as adults, and I dunno, there just seems to be something magical about playing ball hockey. And what the NBHL does is create this stage that makes it feel like this matters. I really enjoy playing on a stage like that. I have so much fun
Pinto - Playing hockey with my friends. Everyone working together for a common goal, is awesome to experience. Just a high level of competition is great to experience again also.
9. What’s one change you’d like to see moving forward to improve the strength of our NBHL pool?
Greco - Nothing. I think we're doing it right as an organization. Chris Ward's appointment to the CSHL Social Media position last month was the last major piece in place to help CSHL get the word out and make sure everyone who wants to play has a chance to be on a roster. October will be a very heavy month calling for NBHL interest in the Charlotte area, so @everyone: keep an eye out for that communication. I expect our biggest turnout for these 2024 rosters as we enter into our 3rd year participating in the NBHL. And lastly, a little teaser, Charlotte is going to start registering for Cool Hockey tournaments in 2024. I would like to thank Josh and Derek Hail for including Charlotte players on their Virginia-based Salty Crab teams. Look for more Charlotte-based participation and registration in 2024. I'm pumped!
Pinto - Better schedule parity and perhaps even some team parity would do well for our division.
Forbes - Better Ref’s, use some not involved with the teams.
Good luck guys, bring home the hardware.
HOW TO WATCH
Mylec Cup stream info is HERE
The schedule is HERE
Group Stage game times below:
Southside Rats:
Saturday, 8AM - KYLR Rink
Saturday, 11AM - Ocean Casino Rink
Saturday, 2PM - Washington Wealth Rink
Mass Vengeance:
Friday, 9PM - KYLR Rink
Saturday, 3PM - Washington Wealth Rink
Saturday, 6PM - KLYR Rink
Raleigh Squall:
Saturday, 8AM - Washington Wealth Rink
Saturday, 2PM - Ocean Casino Rink
Saturday, 8PM - KLYR Rink
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