Hot News Regarding 2006 Year-End Tournament!!!

Rochester Special Hockey FOURTH Invitational Tournament February 21 & 22.

Well another year has come and gone. I think this was one of our best yet. All the responses back have been positive and everyone had a great time!! Albany, St. Catherines, Mississauga, and Buffalo attended and played games Sat. with the All Star games on Sunday. Dinner at the Roger Roebach Beach House was excellent again, Thanks Athena & Nancy!!!!. Medals were handed out and raffle baskets "raffled off" with the Rocheser personel winning the majority again. The looks on Sean Connelly's and Matt Griswold's faces when they won were priceless. And Matt Richardson's twins especially loved all the M&M's!

On April 1st, we drew the winning bid on the Silent Auction for the autographed Thomas Vanek stick, and the winner was John Hollaren from Honeoye Falls.

By the way,,,,,,the tournament was a great success and we look forward to next years.

WE HAVE A DATE FOR OUR THIRD ANNUAL TOURNAMENT!!

We wist to invite all our friends and families to our 3rd event which will be held February 16th & 17th and SIR. We have even reserved the Roger Robach Community Center at Charlotte Beach for the dinner to follow. When the date gets closer, we will let you know the times and teams attending. We would love to see our friends from Boston make the trip. It was a great thrill having them as part of our team during the games in Virginia in April.

Here it is, February 19th, and I am happy to report that the 3rd annual Ice Cat Invitational was a success!! We made $700 from the Raffle Baskets, $90 from t-shirt & coat sales, and $100 from the 50-50 raffle. With the generous donations received from our friends, we broke even again with this years tournament.

We have a date for our Rochester tournament, February 24th and 25th. Saturday & Sunday. We also have the Roger Robach Community Center at Charlotte Beach for a party afterwards. Nancy McCullough and Athena Kobryn will be in charge of the dinner, so any help you can give them will be greatly appreciated. There will be raffle baskets, so everyone who donates will have a chance to win. If you have an idea for a different way to raise funds, please contact me. 723-8996.

Teams to attend; St Catherine's (Canada) Heat - Albany Cougars - New
Jersey Daredevils and the Rochester Ice Cats

Games schedule:

Saturday 2:40 Albany Cougars vs. St. Catherines
3:30 New Jersey vs. Rochester Ice Cats

4:30 "C" Level All Stars
5:20 "A & B" Level All Stars

Sunday 1:00 Albany/New Jersey vs. Rochester Ice Cats
2:00 Skills competition

Rochester IceCats First Annual Invitational

The Rochester IceCats took the plunge and hosted their first Invitational this year on February 18th and 19th at SIR. Teams invited were St. Catherine's Heat, Albany Cougars, New Jersey Daredevils, and New York Raptors. All told, about 150 players, parents and friends attended. To drop the puck for the first game at 1pm was Hall of Famer Scott Metcalf, #10 for the Rochester Americans. It sure was an eye opener for him and his father, and we appreciated them taking time out of their busy weekend to stop by. Scotty was impressed when one of the Ice Cats stopped the play to help a Canadian he had first knocked down. Not quite the game he is used to playing.

Albany and New Jersey took the ice for the second game, and the MOOSE showed up to drop the puck to start them off. Game Three and Four were All-star games combining all the teams to each play at their level. At 5 pm everyone was invited to the Community Center at Charlotte Beach for dinner. Thanks to Nancy McCullough, Vicki Rowland, Athena Kobryn, and Carol Greer for running the dinner. Next time, maybe we could use a little more sloppy joe!!! HAHAHA

Sunday was a two hour game with the US Teams until everyone had had enough. Things seemed to go well, and we have lots of ideas for next years event.

The 2009 year-end tournament will be held in Toronto. We are attending, traveling by car/van instead of renting a bus taking just a small contingency. Last time in Canada we found out how hard it is not having you own vehicle in case an emergency arises. (Not that we want to go thru that again.)

Buffalo held the Festival for the USA Disabled, which also was done as day-trip. Everyone from the Rochester Ice Cats were eligible to play, and did so.

It was great seeing how well the girls pulled together and worked their line. The Ice Cats play so well as a team, even when we add a few "stray cats" in. Congratulations to all!!!!