LITH arranging ice hockey tourney

A little bit of Minnesota will visit Lake in the Hills when the village of Lake in the Hills stages an ice hockey tournament on Woods Creek Lake.

The village's parks and recreation department is putting together a four-on-four, one-day, pond hockey tournament on Jan. 15. It's the first time the village has ever held an outdoor hockey tournament.

“I think it'll be fun it's not necessarily mainstream,” said Trevor Bosack, the recreation supervisor who is coordinating the tournament. “And so since we have a lake, then we figured we'd see what we could figure out to get our own (tournament) up and running.”

The tournament is the result of a conversation Village Administrator Gerald Sagona had two years ago with his dentist, Larry Wright, about outdoor ice hockey.

Wright's son 27-year-old son John, of Lake in the Hills, grew up playing hockey on Woods Creek Lake, right across the street from the family home.

Today, the younger Wright plays on a team that will make its third appearance at the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships in Minneapolis he said his team made it to the finals the first time and won the 21 and older group in the silver division last year.

Nothing, he said, compares to playing the sport out the elements, complete with the cold and the sun reflecting off the ice.

“The memories I cherished most were playing ice hockey there's something about bloody shins and bruised knees,” John Wright said. “I think that Woods Creek Lake is pretty beautiful in itself and I love being on it and I think it'll be a great location for this tournament.”

Sagona also grew up playing ice hockey.

“It's what we used to do for fun,” Sagona said. “We were all on the verge of being drafted by the NHL professionals in our own minds.”

The competition will serve as a warmup for the national pond hockey championships that take place the following weekend and follow the same rules as the tournament, Bosack said.

Each team would play each other twice in two, nonstop 15-minute halves on ice measuring 75 feet by 150 feet.

Gregg Sibigtroth, 50, of Crystal Lake, plans to put together a team of five, including himself, and they're all excited about playing a tournament that's so close to home. Participants need not be residents of Lake in the Hills.

Sibigtroth played the sport since he was 8 and said it differs from indoor hockey because there are no goalies and the focus is more on skating and passing than on scoring and fighting.

“It's really just more of a finesse game, but it's a lot of fun,” Sibigtroth said.

The deadline to register is Jan. 7 and the tournament cannot proceed without at least four teams. It's also limited to 12 teams.

The cost is $100 per team; a maximum of five players are allowed on each. The fee covers tournament officials, pucks, goals and awards for the first-place team.

The tournament is open to adults 18 and older and will be held Feb. 5 if the ice isn't suitable for play on Jan. 15.

For details, call the parks and recreation department at (847) 960-7460.