The Onalaska Booster Club will host the first annual Jacob Trannel Memorial golf outing on July 13 at the LaCrosse Country Club. Registration will begin at 11:30am, with a shotgun start occurring at 12:30pm.

The 18 hole event will be a four-man, best ball format.

The cost is $100 per golfer, which includes golf and dinner.

For more details, contact Ed Tredinnick at edtred@aol.com

Janesville, WI – It’s official!! The Janesville Jets is the name of the North American Hockey League’s (NAHL) newest team. The name and the team’s logo were unveiled at a news conference Friday morning June 5th at the site of the hockey team’s home playing facility, the Janesville Ice Rink.

Over 200 submissions were entered in the first phase of the team’s naming contest. In the second phase, 1,050 votes were registered choosing from the top five names from the first phase, which were the Janesville Jackals, Jaguars, Jayhawks, Jets, and Juggernauts. The Janesville Jets received 373 votes, or 36% of the vote. The second-place name was the Jackals with 199 votes, or 19% of the vote, followed by the Juggernauts (193 votes/18%), the Jaguars (189 votes/18%), and then the Jayhawks (95 votes/9%).

The Janesville Jets also announced that Deb Vesling, who lives and works in Sun Prairie, was the winner of the “Name the Team� promotion. Deb, along with seven other people, submitted the Jets name in the first round. Deb was chosen randomly amongst the eight submitters, and will receive four complimentary season tickets, a team jersey signed by the inaugural players, and the opportunity to drop the ceremonial puck at the first home game.

The other individuals who also entered the final name in the first phase will receive a pair of season tickets and invited to a special ceremony at the Janesville Jets first home game.

“Our whole organization is very excited regarding today’s announcement of the Janesville Jets team name and the logo unveiling,� stated Bill McCoshen, the team’s president and managing partner of Wisconsin Hockey Partners, the franchise ownership group.

“We have made a commitment to Janesville and look forward to bringing exciting and affordable entertainment to the area citizens.�

The Janesville Jets logo was designed as part of a collaborative effort. The initial design was conceptualized by Tony DiNicola, a Janesville Gazette designer, and then graphically edited by Christy Kapellen, a senior graphic designer at Print Max in Milton.

The Janesville Jets new Web site address is www.janesvillejets.com. The NAHL Web site can be located at www.nahl.com.

Team Wisconsin worked hard and built a three goal lead, only to see it erased during a span of 7:17 in the third period, as New Jersey scored a trio of goals in the final regulation period and added the dagger just 23 seconds into the extra period as NJ upset TW 6-5 in the quarterfinal round Saturday morning at the Edge Ice Arena in Bensenville.

TW knocked in three goals in the first 6:21 to build a seemingly insurmountable lead.

Ross Mauermann was in the right place at the right time as he patiently waited for a rebound after two previous attempts by TW players failed. The Janesville star was on the low left side and punched in the goal at 2:06 as the puck came out to his waiting stick.
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Day Three of the Chicago Showcase brought Team Colorado to the opposing bench, and although TW started out slow, they scored four goals in the second period to grab a 4-0 lead and ended up with a 5-2 win Friday evening at the Edge Ice Arena in Bensenville.

The first period was scoreless, even though TW held a 14-7 shot advantage.

TW would take advantage of Colorado penalties, scoring three power play goals in the middle period.

Cody Johnson scored at the 1:12 mark of the period on the power play, with assists going to Tommy Westmark and Jordan Guth for 1-0 lead. Just over five minutes later, Caleb Kostick scored unassisted for a 2-0 lead.

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(Watch this space for daily blogs by TW assistant Brad Weynand.)

Day 3 started out like any other day at the Showcase tournament; we had a lot to accomplish and very little time to do it and any missed step or oversight would cost us dearly.  We walked into the contest against Team New England with plenty of confidence and were expecting success.  However, expectations can often prove fatal. 

We walked into a real war on the ice battling New England who had also gained lots of momentum in their previous game.  They were looking to knock us out and avenge some losses from the previous years. 

New England came out firing and took control of the game right off of the first faceoff.  After a period Team New England kept Team Wisconsin scoreless and this was stifling to the progress and momentum that Team Wisconsin was attempting to establish. 

This proved to further unravel the success of the team for the rest of the game and Team Wisconsin learned a valuable lesson this game.  We learned to grab the momentum and grab it right away because you never know if you will get another opportunity to get it back once it is gone.  We lost this game and used this as momentum for the game on day 4 against Team Colorado.
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Team Northern New England came to play Thursday against TW, playing the physical game early that may have taken TW off their usual speedy play. NNE scored twice in the final period to pull away from TW, 4-1 at the Edge Ice Arena in Bensenville.

The early play might have knocked TW off their game a bit and by the time they recovered, it was 2-0 in NNE’s favor and it looked like deja vu all over again.

Wednesday’s game also had TW facing a 2-0 deficit, but Thursday, they were unable to recover.
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(Watch this space for daily blogs written by TW assistant Brad Weynand.)

The team got up early for the traditional breakfast at Denny’s.  They boaded the hotel shuttle and arrived at Denny’s, ate a massive about of food and discussed the challenges that faced them this the day of the first game. 

They then walked back to the hotel where they hit the books for about an hour and a half.  They we had the team meeting and covered the nuts and bolts of the elements that would hopefully bring us success in our contest against New York. 

Off to the rink to check out team New England and team Missouri and a few others before we faced off against team New York at 6pm.  The team then arrived at the rink around 5 pm, suited up and took the team picture.  The coaching staff looked sharp; I am not gonna lie.
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In the opening game of the 25th Chicago Showcase, Team Wisconsin found itself in a slight predicament, down by two goals late in the first period.

That proved to be no problem as they bounced back and scored the next five goals in taking a hard-fought 5-2 victory over New York in Wednesday’s “A” pool play at the Edge Ice Arena in Bensenville.

TW dominated the play in the first five minutes, but had nothing to show for it. It wasn’t until the eight-minute mark that a score was put on the board.

Matthew Vidal scored with help from Oliver Williams and Joseph Carrabino to give NY a 1-0 lead.

Late in the first period, NY scored again despite being on the penalty kill when Williams stole a point pass and put a shot on TW goalie Andrew Martin that trickled through Martin’s pads and just barely crossed the goal line. Result? 2-0, NY. Continue reading this post…

(Watch this space for blogs posted daily by TW assistant coach Brad Weynand.)

This was the first day of a tremendously exciting week for Team Wisconsin Chicago Showcase 2009.  This is the 25th anniversary year for the showcase and expectations are already high.  There is definitely pressure on TW to succeed but our players are up to the task and hungry for a challenge.

We arrived at the rink in Oregon for the pre-practice stretch at 2pm, had a good flow practice, covered all the essentials, and reviewed the task at hand for the week.  The team fueled up with some pizza (cornerstone for any young athlete poised to make a run at a national tournament). 

The formal wear was put on and we boarded the bus to Chicago.  The feature film was none other than “300″ to get the “soldiers” in the mindset for a gritty week of battle, not backing down, and fighting to the end regardless of the cost.

We arrived in Chicago and found that the Hyatt had been newly remodeled and looking really classy.  We followed up with a team meeting to cover our game plans, hopes, mentality for the week, and then it was off to get a late dinner and off to bed.  

The soldiers will be ready, have no doubts about that. They are hungry for a battle.

It took nearly 75 minutes of hockey, but the Long Island Gulls edged Team Wisconsin U16 3-2 in triple overtime Saturday morning at the U16 Tier I Nationals in Chesterfield, MO.

Terrence Wallin scored for LIG 1:43 into the third extra period to send the Gulls to the semifinals.

Russell Blaser (Monona Grove) scored at 6:48 of the first to give TW an early 1-0 lead. SPASH teammates Joey Haydock and Matt Larson earned assists on the play.

After Long Island tied the game in the second, Alex Racino (Merrill) scored at 4:19 with the assist going to Max McCormick (Notre Dame Academy).

Danny Linnell scored on the power play just 17 seconds into the third to tie the game.

Tony Kujava (Notre Dame Academy) stopped 22 shots in the contest.

Team Wisconsin finished at 2-2 at Nationals and ended the season with a solid 25-8-4 record. Congrats to the players and coaches on a fine season.

Click here for the game box and more details.