March 21, 1982
The Flyers Cup begins tomorrow night and, for the first time in the regional hockey tournament’s three-year history, picking the winner won’t be an easy task. In the first two Cup tournaments, a golf fan could have picked out the winner… it was the school with Scott Chamness and Jeff Arnold up front and Carmen DiGiandomenico on defense. Archbishop Carroll was so dominant the last two years, no one ever seriously thought another team had a chance. None did. Carroll won the first Cup going away and did not lose a tournament game last year. Perhaps that’s why the attendance was so sparse last winter. The result was a foregone conclusion. This year, there are two, possibly three, excellent teams and a fourth that is an unknown commodity. That’s one of the things that makes the tournament, which opens tomorrow night at the Flyers Center (34th and Walnut Streets), so intriguing. Germantown Academy has gone undefeated (25-0) and has broken Carroll’s area record of 19 straight wins at the beginning of the season. The Patriots have the area’s best goaltending and the best coach in Bruce Craig.
Hold Champagne
But hold the champagne. The Patriots will have to contend with Archbishop Ryan, which upset high-powered Bishop Egan, 5-2, to claim a Flyers Cup berth. Ryan put the clamps on a team that had been winning regularly with scores like 20-3. The third excellent team is Inter-County League champ West Chester (23-1-1), which appears fully capable. of winning the Cup but has been somewhat overlooked. The fourth entrant is Haverford, the champion of the new Eastern League (an offshoot of the long-established Inter-County). The Eastern League has taken some knocks this year, as the others all think the league is the weakest of the area’s four. That adds some interest to tomorrow’s games because the league will need a win to establish itself in hockey circles.
Additional Interest
The new “win-three” format also lends interest this season. Obviously, the champion will be the first team to win three games. West Chester and Haverford are matched at 7 p.m. tomorrow, with Ryan and GA playing at 9 p.m. On Wednesday, the two Monday night losers meet, with that loser being eliminated. Also Wednesday, the two winners meet, with that winner getting a bye into the March 31 final.
Next Monday, the two teams that are 1-1 after Wednesday will meet, with that loser also eliminated. Next Monday’s winner meets the team with the bye, and it’s winner-take-all.
In other words, a team that loses the first or second night still can win it all, which makes Monday’s second game so interesting. Nearly all hockey people judge Germantown Academy the best team, but should Ryan pull another upset, GA can come all the way back to play in the final. It’s strange seeing a regional tournament without Carroll. The Patriots not only won the first two Flyers Cups, they won the regional in 1978 and would have won it in 1979 except for a fight that cost them three top players and caused the team to withdraw.
So even those hockey fans who hate Carroll, and they are legion, should silently toast the Patriots. They gave the Flyers Cup credibility the first year by focusing area-wide interest on the fledgling tourney. Even if they aren’t there in person this time, they’re there in spirit.
