Over 200 teams met over Martin King Jr Weekend in Rhode Island and Massachusetts for one of the largest winter hockey tournaments on the East Coast.
             
MYHA faced teams from across New York and New England beating several quality and high ranked teams to successfully defend their title in the 2003 AAA division.

Overall, the Blue Devils went 5-2 for the tournament and were decided underdogs in all but two of their games.  Every game was a close affair with no victory (or defeat) by more than 2 goals.

The goal-tending was outstanding for the Blue Devils with the dynamic duo of Riley Jordan and Jonas Clark combining for a 0.900 save percentage on 167 shots and a GAA of 2.42.



The MYHA Blue Devils deployed a balanced scoring attack all weekend 11 players recording at least one point.  The leading scorer for the Blue Devils was Trevor Gutmann with 6 goals and 4 assists followed closely by Sam Parsons with 4 goals and 5 assists.

The Blue Devils has an up-and-down 4 games in the Round Robin going 2-2 and securing the #7 seed (out of 8).


https://youtu.be/CrGDb8To4Zc

The tournament playoffs was an exciting and tense set of 3 hockey games over a 24 hour period.  In the quarterfinals, MYHA got the opportunity to avenge a 3-2 loss to the Middlesex Islanders, the top ranked team in the tournament.  The Devils appeared to take an early lead but the goal was waived off because the net was dislodged a fraction of the second before the puck went in.  The Blue Devils then got another spot of bad luck when the Islanders scored even though the Devils net was cleared off. The Islanders scored with less than 30 seconds in the 2nd period to make it 2-1 and it looked like maybe MYHA was going to bow out. Not on this day however.  At 7:15, Zac Mason scooped up a loose puck on an offensive zone draw and sniped a top shelf wrister to tie the game.  Then with 2:39 to play, MYHA scores the game winner on a gritty play by Devon McCarthy.  While dumping the puck, Devon gets wiped out on a heavy check.  He recovers and steals a clearing pass sliding it over to Sam Parsons.  Sam bumps it to Trevor Gutmann who waits to the last possible second to slide it past the Islander goalie.

The semi-final was even more dramatic.  The game was against the Flyers Youth an opponent that MYHA had tied twice earlier in the year.  This game looked to be over early with the Blue Devils taking an early 2-0.  The Flyers cut the lead in half in the second period and then scored with 0:27 left in the game on a great looking faceoff play.  The game was going to overtime.  This tournament has no shootout and instead plays with a reducing sudden death overtime format (5v5 for 5 mins, 4v4 for 5 min then 3v3).  The Flyers dominated the first two overtimes outshooting the Devils 8 to 2 and hitting the post on two other occasions.  The MYHA goalie, Jordan Riley, was a maestro turning aside shot after shot.  Then 7 minutes into the third OT, Sam Parsons skated in on a breakaway and deposited the game winning shot.

The final game against the East Coast Wizards.  The Wizards had soundly defeated the #1 seed Westchester Vipers 6-3 in the other semi-final.  The Wizards were a big, fast team and dominated the first period over the Blue Devils outshooting MYHA 17-2.  The Devils goalie, Jonas Clark, kept the team in the game turning aside 16 of the shots.  The Devils regained their balance in the 2nd period and struck back at 7:25 to tie up the game.  The Wizards then took a charging penalty and MYHA scored a soft goal on the ensuing power play.  This chased the Wizards starting goalie and seemed to get into the Wizards psyche. 
The Wizards tied up the game early in the 3rd period and it looked like the game might go to overtime.  But then game MVP, Oscar Smink, banked in the winning goal after the goalie side.  Oscar also had the winning goal in last year’s championship game.  The Blue Devils would add an empty net goal to secure the championship by a score of 4-2.