Backyard Ice Rink is the Home of National Champions

By Mark Wetzel North Canton, OH

Winter in Ohio means that everyone heads south for vacation, right? Not for two teams of adult ice hockey players from the Canton area. These guys would rather travel to Eagle River, Wisconsin, in the middle of February to play in the Labatt Blue / USA Hockey Pond Hockey National Championships.

Teams sponsored by OMNI Orthopedics and Allied Enterprises went to the 6th annual event held February 11 – 13 on the Dollar Lake in Wisconsin. There they met up with 250 teams competing in 15 separate divisions for a chance to win a national championship. A surprising 25 states and four different countries were represented in the event. To handle all these teams, 24 rinks were setup on Dollar Lake to allow the competition to take place.

Team OMNI Orthopedics played in the Beginner division and included Ira Richterman, Joe Tilstra, Eric Nagy, Eric Wittington, Pete Sugerman and Frank Miotke. Team Allied Enterprises (aka Arthritic Erosion) played in the 40 and Over Tier 2 division and included Kevin Collard, Randy Jarvis, Jeff Rand, Mark Wetzel and Paul Wischt.

Team Allied Enterprises finished with two wins and one loss, just missing the playoffs by a mere five goals. They had dreams of glory as the team lost in overtime at last year’s event. This was their third year at the event.

Team OMNI Orthopedics finished the round-robin portion of the tournament with a perfect 3 – 0 record. They swept through the playoffs to become the Beginner division champions with a final 4 – 2 victory on Sunday afternoon. Ira Richterman attributed the victory to three things; 1) playing adult hockey at the Center Ice Sports Complex for the Pond Scum hockey teams, 2) hours spent watching and learning from their children play, and 3) time spent on an ice rink set up in his backyard in Jackson Township. They never imagined they would be champions. They were there just for fun. Backyard ice to national champions – is this a great country or what?!