Youth hockey tournament set to come to New Ulm

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- While baseball and softball are on the minds of almost all sports fans here in New Ulm, hockey is also making some big news of its own.

The 2005 Minnesota Bantam Hockey Tournament will be held at the New Ulm Civic Center March 11-13, according to Rick Traulich of the New Ulm Hockey Association.

The bantam age level includes 14 and 15-year-olds.

"There will be eight regional winnners from around Minnesota coming to New Ulm for the three-day tournament," Traulich said. "The teams will first play their district tournaments first before playing in regional tournaments."

How big is the State Bantam Tournament compared to other hockey tournamnets?

"This is the second-biggest hockey event in the state of Minnesota next to the Minnesota High School Hockey Tournament," Traulich said. "We anticipate eight teams which will bring between 100-125 people with them. Add those totals up and that is over 1,000 visitors to New Ulm for the three-day tournament. They will be filling hotels and motels here in New Ulm and will be a big boost to food places, etc. Three of the teams will be from northern Minnesota so they will probably be here in New Ulm on Wednesday already."

Traulich said that the New Ulm Hockey Association will meet on Monday to "find out the information that we need to do -- kind of like the Legion Baseball Tournaments that have been here have done. Then we will be going gung-ho after that looking for volunteers to help with the tournament."

He said that the caliber of hockey that will be in New Ulm for the tournament is pretty high.

"It will be one notch below high school hockey," he said. "Teams that play here in the regionals will more times than now be in the state high school hockey tournament a couple years after they play here."

Traulich added that there will be a tournament banquet "which we are looking having at Martin Luther College. We are expecting about 750 people at the banquet. We are trying to line up a speaker for the banquet but right now, we do not have one. We are looking at some big names."

Traulich said that the Hockey Association is looking for a lot of volunteers for the tournament to help.

While New Ulm is not automatically seeded into the tournament as host, Traulich believes that New Ulm has a good chance of qualifying for it.

"Our bantam team finished second in the regionals last year so we are expecting them to have a good chance at it next year."

If you are interested in helping, you can contact anyone from the New Ulm Hockey Association.

PAA AT UNI: Amanda Paa, a sophomore from New Ulm at the University of Northern Iowa and a member of the varsity women's golf team said that the Panthers are having a good season thus far.

"We just finished up our (Missouri Valley Conference ) meet and we took fourth there. We were in second by two strokes after two days but we did not play well on the third day," she said.

Her Panther team finished nine strokes out of first place. "It is a tough conference."

Paa and her UNI team have played in tournaments in California, Texas and Missouri this spring, said that she did not play in as many meets as she did last year "because we had three seniors this year. I worked hard during the off-season lifting weights and working on my game. I will be counted on more next year (as a junior). "

Her off-season workouts have made her change her game a little bit. "My off-season workouts have gained me strength so some of my differences are different than they were before -- I have gained about 15 yards on my drives and people do not realize it is not how far your ball goes but how far it flys. I have been working on my consistency with my drives. This summer will allow me to work more on those things."

Paa said that she is "excited that I am hitting the ball farther. That will really help my game."

She has also seen a lot of improvement in her short game since her freshman year. "When you play the longer courses like we do, you really have to rely on your short game because it is easy to miss greens when you hit longer shots."

Paa is also doing well in the classroom. She was named to the Dean's List at UNI the last two semester. Paa is majoring in Marketing at UNI.

GOLD NAMES ASSISTANT COACH; New Ulm Legion Gold baseball coach Dave Kunz has named LeRoy Flor as his assistant this year.

HOFFMANN WORKS ON TIMING: Jamie Hoffmann of New Ulm said that he has learned a lot on his exended spring training with the Los Angeles Dodgers in Vero Beach, Florida.

"I have been working on my timing with wood bats -- I have not used wood bats to often. I had the aluminum bat swing which was hands to the ball. Now, I have learned more about loading my swing, using my legs. I also learned some new mechanics throwing-wise. When I came here my arm got sore because I pretty much threw all arm. But now they have helped me with that."

Hoffmann plays third, shortstop and second base. He does not yet know where he will be assigned after extended spring training.