Performance Office Papers Dangles to Cup Win

Edina, MN - The Dangle League Cup was on the line and alkdjdf defeated alkdjdfk to capture the first ever championship in league history. Empower’s Performance defeated Hepp’s Salt Co 3-1 to earn third place in the Dangle Cup Playoffs.  The evening closed out a highly competitive season that featured 80 of the top players in Minnesota Girls High School Hockey in a summer league that did not resemble ‘summer league’ hockey.  

Performance Office Papers  - Tradition Mortgage 

Performance Office Papers (POP) and Tradition Mortgage clashed for the inaugural Dangle Cup on Braemar Arena ice Thursday night.  The game did not disappoint as would be expected in the way the four teams in the league have gotten after it each night.  The play was up and down and the chances were stifled by the goaltenders in the early going but POP secured quality chances with offensive zone time and delivered in transition to win the Dangle Cup with a 4-2 win despite needing to survive a late push by Tradition.  

Goalies Kayla Swartout (Holy Family) stopped all 10 shots she saw and Kaydence Roeske (River Lakes) made 14 of 16 saves to  combine for the win.  

Courtney Little (Andover) opened the scoring with a waist high redirect off Mackenzie Jones (Andover) blast from the point to beat Reese McConnell (Edina) in goal.  It was quite the skillful play that began when Lauren Mack (Minnetonka) found Jones from the left boards at the blue line who walked to the middle and let it go.  Little moved from her defensive spot to the mid slot area for the great hand-eye tally.  

Kendall Hassler put her POP  team up 2-0 with a shot from the bottom of the right circle by cutting against the grain and ripped the puck  that sailed past the blocker pad side of McConnell. Hassler had two points in the semi-final and continued her torrid play in the championship game with two more.  

Early in the second half POP continued their surge and went up 3-0 on a goal by Sophia Hess (River Lakes).  Hassler assisted on that goal. 

Katya Sander (Holy Family) broke the ice to score Tradtition’s goal on an incredible effort splitting the defense.  Lily McKenzie (Champlin Park) and Katie Ball (Centennial/Spring Lake assisted on the tally.  The goal fueled Tradition who pressured POP and drew a penalty in the offensive zone.  

Tradition went on the power play with 2 minutes left in the second half.  With 1:26 to go Teagan Kulenkamp (Centennial Spring/Lake Park) blasted a feed from Lily Pachl (South St. Paul). The play started with Camille Dubuc (Edina) who was celebrating her birthday and did it in style with an assist in a key time of the game. 

An empty net goal was scored by POP’s Ella Nonweiler (Holy Family) gave her tam the breathing room needed to close out the game and earn the final margin of 4-2. 

POP finished the season a combined 5-3 while Tradition completed their season with a record of 2-4-2.  

Empowers Performance 3 - Hepp’s Salt Co. 1

Top seeded Hepp’s Salt Co. roared to the regular season title with a 5-1 record but were stopped in the playoffs by fourth seeded Tradition Mortgage 4-2 last night.  Second seeded Empowers Performance was defeated by the third seeded Performance Office Papers 4-3 in the second semi-final game which set up the third place game between the two top seeded teams.  It would be easy to say that on paper the third place match-up was a surprise but to those who followed the league, the parity was in plain sight every night. 

Hepp’s plays with tempo and edge and Empowers have been known to bring their own game of intensity.  The two games the teams played were won by Hepp’s who nabbed a 2-1 shootout and 3-1 win.  This time, with third place on the line, Empowers Performance earned the 3-1 win.  

With the most goals for and the fewest allowed this season by Hepp’s, keeping them off the board would be tough task.  No problem for the goaltending tandem of Nora Hannon (Edina), who had 23 saves on 23 shots, and Zoe Rimstad (Academy of Holy Angels who had 12 saves on thirteen shots.  It was the last shot of the game by Zoe Lopez (Orono) that ruined the shutout with 8 seconds left.  

Prior to the Lopez goal, a 3-0 lead was built on goals by Maya Engler (Andover), Senja Leeper (Minnetonka), and Sophie Olson (Hill-Murray) each scored with Maddie Kimbrel (Orono) picking up two assists.