The Summer Miracle On Ice.

Herb Brooks said to his USA squad before they played the Russians in 1980, "8 times out of 10 they will beat us, but we can beat them just once, this game...."

Looking back at the (sometimes long) summer season, we were never once out-worked, and to me it just showed how everyone on our team really just loves to play hockey. Derek said it to me last February, that we were pretty lucky to get dealt the group of guys we ended up with - he was right. And we made it even better this summer with some key additions.

4-3 win over the Daley Byers.

Q: How satisfying was it to defeat the only team we hadn't beat so far? A: Quite.

True sportsmen the Daley Byers were though in defeat, at the same time recognizing how much audacity and perseverance everyone on the Vikings showed, even when we were down 3-0.

After starting the summer season with a 1-5 record we completely turned it around making sure that everyone knew that if they played us after that, they HAD to play their best. I didn't want to play the Thrashers in the final, I wanted to play the Daley Byers. It was our time to beat them, and I am sure they felt us creeping up on them after the game last week with our short bench. They didn't deserve to win that game, nor did they deserve to win this final game. We did. We won.

Thanks all for a fabulous summer and playoff run.


Marty