Pond Hockey Classic brings thousands to Meredith Bay on Lake Winnipesaukee
By JOHN KOZIOL
Sunday News Correspondent
February 04. 2018 12:11AM
Team Polish Embassy, in red jerseys, took on the Summer Panthers in the Open division on Saturday during the 9th annual New England Pond Hockey Classic on Meredith Bay. The tournament has more than 2,000 players competing on 275 teams. (JOHN KOZIOL/SUNDAY NEWS CORRESPONDENT)
MEREDITH - In less than a decade, the New England Pond Hockey Classic has become a premier winter event in the Lakes Region, this year drawing 275 teams and more than 2,000 competitors to Meredith Bay on Lake Winnipesaukee.
The 2018 PHC began Friday and wraps up Sunday, with the top team in the Open division taking home the "WinnipeHockey Cup," a smaller, wooden version of Lord Stanley's cup that is hoisted by the National Hockey League champion each year.
Under bright blue skies and with temperatures in the single digits Saturday, all 26 rinks on Meredith Bay were in use, making tournament organizer Scott Crowder a happy man.
A Massachusetts native, Crowder played hockey at Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua and at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he earned bachelor's degrees in sports management and marketing.
In 2017, Crowder, whose dad, Bruce, and uncle, Keith Crowder, both played in the National Hockey League, was named the Stay, Work, Play Young Entrepreneur of the Year; this year the New Hampshire Union Leader honored him as one of its "40 Under 40."
Crowder said the PHC, which now includes sister tournaments in Vermont and Montana, is an opportunity for hockey players to relive past glory and make new memories while enjoying a beer with friends.
Although the PHC features a four-on-four, no-goalie, no-checking and no-slapshot format, the play is competitive and entertaining.
In March, the top four PHC teams will compete in Boston in the Red Bull Open Ice Finals against the best four teams from Crowder's Lake Champlain Pond Hockey Classic.
Starting with just seven rinks and 77 teams in 2010, the tournament hit its stride in 2016 and its present size, which also happens to be the optimal size for the space available on Meredith Bay.
While hockey games filled the northeastern side of the bay, the northwestern side was occupied by bob houses already set there for next weekend's Great Meredith Rotary Ice Fishing Derby.
"The conditions are great" for the 2018 PHC, said Crowder, noting that an Arctic cold wave in late December/early January "really locked the lake in."
Andrew Eriksen, 28, of Beverly, Mass., agreed.
A member of the "Of Moose and Men" team, which is partly a reference to John Steinbeck's novel and to a former teammate, Eriksen said he's been participating in the PHC for six years, first while a student at Plymouth State University.
"We all played in high school," said Eriksen, who is a paramedic-firefighter in Lexington, Mass. "We all grew up playing on the ponds in Beverly."
The PHC, he said, "is an excellent event, very-well organized and something we can't get enough of, obviously."
On his mental calendar, "This weekend is blocked off for the foreseeable future," Eriksen said.
