Whiz Kids: Area Hockey Players Skate to National Championship

This week's Whiz Kids are from the HoneyBaked Hockey Team, a southeast Michigan team that includes two Macomb players. The team won the AAA Midget Minor Hockey National Championship over the weekend.

Honey Baked AAA Midget Minor Hockey Team

Schools: Utica Eisenhower,

Accomplishment: While many of their peers were soaking up the sun in Florida, two Macomb teens were in Simsbury, CT, skating hard to claim the national title for the Tier 1 U16 division. 

The championship HoneyBaked team is made up of 20 of the best 16- and 17-year-old hockey players from all over Southeast Michigan. Two of those players, Ian Fish (Junior, L’Anse Creuse North) and Mitch Maloney (Junior, Utica Eisenhower), are from the Macomb area.

Key to Awesomeness: The road to the national championship was demanding. The team, coached by Mike Hamilton, set goals at the beginning of the season. Those goals included league, tournament, state and national championships. 

"With this group it was clear from day one, they had some lofty goals as a team they wanted to achieve," Hamilton said. 

By March 30, the HoneyBaked Hockey team had attained each one of the goals that they set.

After competing against five of the highest-ranked teams in the country, HoneyBaked finished their regular season by becoming the Tier 1 Hockey League Champions. They entered tournament play and won every tournament they entered, including six national showcases and two top-ranked invitational AAA tournaments.

All of the games were hard-fought, often resulting in overtime finishes, but in the end, HoneyBaked defeated the New Jersey Avalanche, the Buffalo Regals, Team Illinois, Atlanta-area Thunder, Pittsburgh Hornets, and finally the top-ranked Shattuck St. Mary’s from Faribault, MN.

HoneyBaked Hockey finished their season with 73 wins, three losses and three ties—a 94 percent winning percentage. They outscored their opponents with an average of 4.7 goals per game and allowed only 1.5 goals per game from their opponents.    

"This was a very special group of young men who were truly a team," Hamilton said. "At this level, teams and players tend to put individual accomplishments first and team success second. I can tell you in my 13 years of coaching youth hockey, this group was clearly the easiest I have had. Every player had great grades, had no off-ice issues and flat out brought it everyday no matter if it was a game or practice. They pushed one another each day."

Hamilton predicts that "these young men will have a long story about an unbelievable team, unbelievable teammates and storybook season to tell someday to their friends and kids."