NH Whalers 2010 - The Champions - 1 In Awesome Wonder

June 11, 2023 – NH Whalers 2010 – The Champions. After earning the #1 seed, the 2010 NH Whalers had to wait until late Sunday afternoon to finish their tournament run. They played the NYC Falcons in the Championship Game.

The NYC Falcons earned the #2 seed, going 2-2 in round robin play. They lost twice to the NH Whalers but beat the Southampton Penguins twice, 3-1, and then 7-2. The Falcons were getting better each time they played. Now, the Whalers had to beat the Falcons for the third time in three days if they wanted to complete their run to become the champions.

It was off to a new rink on Sunday for the NH Whalers. This time they were playing at Thayer Arena in Warwick, RI. It was a warm, sunny, Sunday. And it wouldn’t take too long to realize just how warm it was inside the arena as well.

Before I stepped into the arena I took some pictures outside. There is really nothing pretty about this part of town, or the lot that the arena is on. But I tried to find something good to capture. I came up with this.

In slightly stealth mode I was able to capture Whalers goaltender, Travis Ingalls, arriving at Thayer Arena. Despite his celebrity he was able to slip through the lot with little fanfare but I still got the jump on the rest of the paparazzi and snapped this photo of his arrival.

Travis doesn’t know it, but he has been spotted arriving at Thayer Arena for the Ocean State Lobsterfest Championship game. This will fetch a pretty penny on the hockey player photo market. (Notice the Whalers blue border. This happens all by itself when capturing an A-list celebrity).

Once inside the arena we had to wait for another game to finish, and then watch the champions skate a conga line around the rink in celebration of their win in another division.

The ice looked like it had 2 inches of snow on it. It looked soft and choppy, and it was very warm inside, for an ice rink. Then I saw the Zamboni trying to break some land speed, in this case ice speed records while dumping copious amounts of water on top of the ice surface. I thought that this would not bode well for a crisp, quick, game of hockey to follow.

This is the scene at Thayer Arena before the NH Whalers took the ice for the Championship game. There was zero chance of this flood refreezing before game time. There were parts that barely froze before halftime.

So, finally, the game began. We all knew coming into the final, that the Falcons were getting better with every contest. For example, they opened their tournament run with a 3-1 win over the Penguins. After two battles with the Whalers, they finished with a 7-2 win over the Penguins. Keep in mind that the Penguins goaltender was pretty amazing. The Falcons had already improved.

They came into the final game with a definitive plan to keep the Whalers off of the scoreboard. They packed the D-zone with all five skaters and looked to make homerun passes out of the their zone or to send a forward on the fly toward zone clearing attempts for a breakaway.

Opening face-off of the Championship game for the Greenwich Division. If you look closely you can see pools of water on the ice.

The NYC Falcons scored first on a semi-break where the shot was deflected, then bounced like a super ball, and found the net. Not only was the water not frozen, the pucks appeared to have been left out in the sun instead of frozen. They bounced everywhere. It was the first time in their five games, that the NH Whalers had been behind.

: McCain sets up to take a shot on the watery ice. You might also spot Frosty the Snowman, and of course, Liam.

: Teddy likes crashing into things even when there are not other players in the area. The look on the faces tells the story.

: Caleb comes into the corner on the forecheck. This would pay off in the long run.

At the end of the first half, the Whalers were not winning. The ice had been very wet, with pucks sticking to the ice at times. By the end of the half, the snow was accumulating all around the ice surface. The speed of the game was slowed by these conditions. These things weren’t necessarily good for either team really. The game was tied, 1-1. There were 18 minutes left to play in the tournament for these two teams.

: During the first half, the Whalers found it more difficult to create plays in the O-zone.

: They had their chances but everything in front of the net was more congested than it had been. St. Pierre looks for an open teammate.

: Jacob puts a shot toward the net in the first half while trying to avoid the puddle at his feet.

: Lucas Ouellette had a great tournament although I didn’t get any good pictures of the goals he scored. He found a lane to shoot through in the title game.

: This is how the Falcons wanted things to look, congested, without open space for the Whalers to create.

The Whalers kept playing their game. Liam Duchesne did allow the one goal on a deflection and a bounce, but he also shut down some point blank chances that were created by the Falcons game plan to get breakaways or hail mary’s. These saves allowed the Whalers to keep cycling and forechecking without falling behind after tying the score.

I didn’t get a good picture of the goal that tied the game for the Whalers, but the celebration was so good that the teammates flattened each other.

: Logan is quick study. He learned some steps and moves from Jax and decided to employ some of them, pronto.

: In the first half the Falcons pestered the Whalers all over the offensive zone. Teddy finds space, maybe, but the Falcons had shut off the lanes.

: While overseas, Chang, er uh, Chase had picked up some finer points and added them to his game. Like this knucklepuck shot on the move.

: 18 minutes down, 18 minutes to go. The game was tied, 1-1. The Whalers had their chat and a brief breather before resuming the game for the second half.

Roughly five minutes after the first half ended, this play happened. The first domino fell.

: Teddy breaks free into the offensive zone and looks to see where he might have some help or an open teammate.

: Across the ice, he spots Caleb who is a right handed shot skating down the left wing.

: Teddy rifled a hard pass to Caleb who collected the puck and fired a rocket at the net.

: Caleb’s shot found the back of the net and the Whalers led, 2-1. Shooter and passer come together in the celebration.

: The NH Whalers did this all tournament. They just kept playing hockey, line after line, shift after shift, and the results followed. This would be the Championship game-winner.

As these things had happened over the course of the tournament, especially against the NYC Falcons, the games would be tight for a time. In this case, each game with the Falcons got tighter for longer, the more they played each other. But honestly, the Whalers just kept coming. Every line played outstanding, and each with completely different styles. The defensemen was awesome and could also join the rush and score, and sometimes they did. The goaltending tandem wasn’t test a whole lot but DO NOT underestimate the great and timely saves that they did make allowing the NH Whalers to stay sky high in the confidence column.

The fifth and final game, the Championship Game, played out in the same way. The Whalers took a 2-1 lead. Travis made a couple of big saves, and then ten minutes after taking a 2-1 lead, the Whalers were up, 4-1. Ten minutes after that, it was 8-1 and the Whalers were Ocean State Lobsterfest Champions! Every single player contributed and it was awesome to watch.

I know the players make the plays, score the goals, stop the goals, and face adversity from shift to shift, and they were absolutely awesome! I also know that this team was put together by the coaches and then arranged in groups for the best chance to win games. This was done with outstanding results on and off of the ice. I don’t know exactly what it was, but it sure felt like these kids loved playing with and for each other and the coaching staff too. Well done.

Let’s get to the rest of the pictures…Please enjoy. It’s all about the kids. And my hope is that the kids get to see themselves in some decent hockey pictures along the way while capturing their pursuit of being the best that they can be, one shift at a time.

Here we go…

Seriously, just click on the pictures to zoom in and have a look around. Pictures really do contain so many little details and surprises. Enjoy!

: The Freight Train runs many of the same tracks, but he’s always working hard. He’s always looking to get better.

: Then Jax skates in and shows Logan some different looks. This is called the Jax Dangle, not to be confused with the similar sounding, Jack Daniels.

: Teddy sees the puck in the net. I saw it in the net (although my camera did not). The ref (not seen) saw the puck in the net. The Falcons thought their goalie had covered it. He had not. 3-1.

: The dominoes where still falling and the NH Whalers were celebrating their hard work paying off.

Logan McCain scores on a clean breakaway. I captured this picture on his post goal turn (also learned from the Russian figure skating circuit via Jax). I call this look, this pose, ‘The Napoleon and Kip Dynamite’. If you remember their facial expressions in the movie, I think this embodies the Dynamite brothers. Vote for Pedro.

The picture is a bit blurry but it tells a story. The ice is soft, snowy, and slow. The 1-1 halftime score is long gone. The Whalers goalie is not recently tested. The Whalers are skating into open ice at will. And the NYC Falcons are spent, having played their 36 minutes of hockey in the first 20 minutes of the game. Dominoes are falling and nothing will stop them now.

It’s 5-1. And all that is left is time. The Whalers just kept skating. They didn’t run up the score but they didn’t play keep away either. They just kept playing hockey.

I didn’t take any pictures of the final three goals. I was getting ready to find the ice and take a team picture. I was also thinking that good teams still need to show up and play good hockey in order to win games. Especially, when they are playing the same teams often. “Familiarity breeds contempt”, but this Whalers team found ways to lift their game and honor the game by doing so. It didn’t matter who the opponent was. That’s a credit to every member of the team.

The following 5 pictures are awesome. Not because of the quality of the pictures, but because of the kids and the coaches in the pictures. Seriously, if being a kid nowadays doesn’t include ample time to allow kids to actually be kids, then what is the point. In our modern pace of life we have left almost no time for kids to be kids or for kids to actually experience the ‘times of their lives’.

I don’t think it qualifies as the ‘times of their lives’ if the ‘times’ are just slivers of time squeezed in between the massive boulders of living a life that looks good on social media and is so full that nearly no single moment is discernible. It’s good to slow down and think, to figure things out, and to know that these are in fact the ‘times of our lives’.

Finally, don’t shoot the photographer. I tried my best to get pictures of the kids after the game, without them being blocked out by the massive team trophy they won. Also, I hope that their individual trophies and medals don’t hinder your ability to find your player in these shots.

Honestly though, medals or not, trophies or not, these 5 pictures are worth it all. Our kids being kids, and the coaches tapping into their own ‘kidness’ too.

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

Photo 4

Photo 5

For the time being, you can still see the Playoff scores from Sunday’s playoff games at the Ocean State Lobsterfest (June 9-11), right here.

After the fifth and final game, it was time to head back to NH. It was a gorgeous day. Before my son and I left the arena I had to get another picture of our glorious flag. The first picture I took from my vantage point for the game, and the last picture I took before I headed north.

Then, Teddy and I made a prearranged very quick stop in Attleborough, MA at the house I lived in way back in the early 70’s (that’s the 1970’s). It doesn’t look exactly the same, or as plain as it looked back then. But I still have memories there. Primarily, I remember my late brother and I there. We were small, but we had each other. And in time, it turns out that we always had each other.

You can follow other NH Whalers 2010 Hockey stories, here.

You can also follow this blog here. I write a lot about hockey. It’s a long season. It’s not all just about the hockey, but rather about lessons and takeaways that come up throughout these seasons. Yes, I am biased. I am biased toward the truth and the right way to do things, whether anyone is watching or not.

The players play the games. The kids score the goals and make the saves. Most of the time, the kids band together for something that is bigger than themselves; the team. The kids do so many things right on any given play, on any given day. I have found that more often than not, the kids pleasantly surprise us all. It’s awesome. It’s all about the kids.

Until the next time…

(Photography provided by Jen D and the Chenko’s)

The thoughts and opinions expressed here are those of the individual contributors, mostly mine, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the schools, coaches, players, or characters listed in any of these blog posts. Or, maybe they do, but you would have to ask them directly.

Either way, “It’s a great day for hockey” ~ the late “Badger” Bob Johnson.

“We should be dreaming. We grew up as kids having dreams, but now we’re too sophisticated as adults, as a nation. We stopped dreaming. We should always have dreams.” ~ the late Herb Brooks.

“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it: If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.” ~ Jim Valvano on how to live life, during his ESPY speech.

“I started writing sports stories 20 years ago. I still do. I write because somewhere, in some game, a kid might be having the time of his or her life. That’s awesome to think about. It’s all about the kids.” ~ Steve Beal Sr.