The Raiders girls hockey team entered the week at 4-6 with games against Rochester Century (4-8) and Park of Cottage Grove (6-5). The game against Rochester had the Raiders on the road on Dec. 19. Against Park, the girls were the first high school varsity team to play at the new SCHEELS Rink at the Tradition Veterans Complex at United Heroes League on the east edge of Hastings.
Against Rochester, the girls took an early lead when Emily Thuet and Jade Schauer connected with Addie Seleski for the game’s first goal at 1:37. The Raiders extended their lead at 5:59, this time Schauer scored with assists going to Madyn Hanson and Ava Hoffman.
Hastings held on to their 2-0 lead into the second, which ended up being a repeat of the first. Hastings scored at 1:28 into the second. Autumn Burt earned her first goal of the game with help from Haley Siebenaler and Brooke Townsend. Sophie Thorkelson added another Raider goal with the help of Grace Petrich at 6:21.
Century scored one in the third to eliminate the shutout, but Hastings held on to win 4-1. The Raiders had three penalties for six minutes in the game while Rochester had one infraction for two minutes. All the goals were even strength goals. The Raiders took 41 shots while junior goalie Victoria Steinke faced two shots in the first period, stopping both, and sophomore Addison Lanning faced 12 shots the rest of the game, stopping 11 for a .917 save percentage.
The game against Park of Cottage Grove was originally scheduled for a Friday night tilt, but a unique opportunity was presented to the Raiders. United Heroes League (UHL) installed a chilled outdoor rink on their property over the summer and the girls were invited out to be the first official high school varsity game at the SCHEELS Rink at the Tradition Veterans Complex.
An outdoor game on December 23 in Minnesota should not seem too difficult to have under normal circumstances but the weather has been a bit strange this December. Not only was it above 40 degrees overnight, but it was also a very wet morning with some rain and a lot of fog. The UHL crew with the assistance of Sliv McGree and Jesse Vial worked diligently to get the rink ready for the JV girls to take the ice at 11 a.m.
JV lost the entertaining game 5-3 and the warm weather delayed the varsity game slightly to a 1:15 start time. The varsity game started off slow. The ice conditions were a little sticky which slowed the game down a lot more than was expected in the first period. With less than three minutes to go in the first, Kacey Plank took a pass from Autumn Burt on a Raider powerplay, and Plank found white lace at 14:05.
The second period was a stark contrast to the first. The air temperature started to drop which brought the game tempo up to normal, but that tempo change also brought about a plethora of craziness and penalties. There were six penalties alone in the second period, five going against Park. At one point, there were three Park skaters in the penalty box and one Raider. It was a wild second period. Seleski added another goal to her stat sheet less than a minute into the period, and Burt added another point with her second assist of the game. Hastings went to the second intermission leading 2-0.
The third period calmed down significantly with only one penalty to Ava Hoffman. Normally, the name is not mentioned for penalties, but the conversation that happened between the official scorer for the Raiders and Ava was not only amusing but fun to speculate that it led to the final goal of the game for Hastings. The official scorer was Ava’s father, Adam Hoffman.
Adam smarted off to Ava as she sat down, “How do you spell your last name?”
A good laugh was had by those who heard it, then a discussion took place about the game, and of course, dad had to give her a little ribbing for not scoring yet this game. What does she do? Gets out of the penalty box and almost instantly has a 2-on-1 scoring opportunity. It was unclear what exactly happened, but Ava took the pass from her teammate and scored. There was a lengthy discussion by the officials, and the goal was waved off. Before the goal was waved off, there was celebratory laughter about how the conversation motivated her to score.
With Hastings leading 2-0, Park pulled their goalie with three minutes remaining. Hastings cleared the puck a few times toward the empty net with the first one bouncing off the side, missing by inches. The second clear by Hoffman slid right down the middle of the ice scoring the unassisted empty net goal at 15:12 of the third period.
Hastings had a total of 30 shots on goal to Park’s 31 in the 3-0 win. Steinke earned her second shutout of the season, stopping all 30 shots. Hastings went to the box for four minutes on two infractions and Park went six times for 12 minutes. Hastings scored on one powerplay.
The Raiders will finish 2023 at the Burnsville Tournament. First on the schedule for the tournament is Eastview on Dec. 27 at 5 p.m. Dec. 28 they face Metro-South at 7 p.m. and then finish the tournament against Hopkins on Dec. 29 at 5 p.m. The Raiders will kick off 2024 with a rematch against Two Rivers/St. Paul on Jan. 3 at home at 7 p.m.