AVON, Conn. -- Eight of the top prep teams in the Northeast are headed to Avon Old Farms Thursday, Friday and Saturday for the annual Christmas Hockey Classic. And significant bragging rights are on the line.
Coming into the tournament, we've got three unbeaten teams heading toward a showdown. And not only are they unbeaten, but these teams are perfect. Hosts Avon (5-0), Berkshire (4-0) and Loomis Chaffee (6-0) are all off to hot starts.
Avon Old Farms head coach John Gardner said the tournament, which will take place in the recently (2018) refurbished Jennings Fairchild Rink at Avon Old Farms and Trinity College (two games), is a good opportunity for teams heading toward the holiday break.
"I mean, it can kill your season, it can totally derail your season and sometimes it can serve as a catalyst for you," said the longtime Winged Beavers coach. "And it’s funny, it’s tough to predict. If you win it or go 3-1, that’s always most people’s goals, [but] every once in a while you’ll have a crappy tournament and you can turn it around after that. It just depends on the teams. Some teams have come in really hot and then just get ice cold. It sort of reveals what you’ve got. It’s not a good time to have kids sick or hurt, that’s for sure."
Look for coverage of the tournament on HockeyJournal.com.
This season's tournament will feature teams from:
- Berkshire School, Sheffield, Mass.
- The Gunnery School, Washington, Conn.
- Kent School, Kent, Conn.
- Loomis Chaffee, Windsor, Conn.
- St. Paul’s School, Concord, N.H.
- Tabor Academy, Marion, Mass.
- Trinity-Pawling School, Pawling, N.Y.
- Avon Old Farms School, Avon, Conn.
Last year's tournament was won by Gunnery with a 2-0 win over St. Paul's in the championship final.
Storylines to watch
- Gunnery winger Alex Jefferies (Lunenburg, Mass.) will be watched by a lot of scouts this weekend; how he responds under yet another microscope could go a long way toward determining his draft stock.
- Tabor Heaslip, who turned 18 on Tuesday, is Avon's leader. The UConn commit is off to a good start and will be feeling the heat to get his team to the final of its own tournament.
- Berkshire forward Briggs Gammill (New Canaan, Conn.) was injured last year, and the Yale commit is looking to impress with a comeback of sorts.
- Which team will emerge undefeated from the tournament? Avon, Berkshire or Loomis? The latter two are headed for a big game on Thursday at 3 p.m., so it won't take long for us to get at least a partial answer.
Tournament facts
- First game of the tournament is Thursday at 1 p.m.; action continues all three days through the championship game, which is 3:30 p.m. on Saturday. Games are at the Jennings Fairchild Rink at Avon Old Farms on all three days, with two games at Trinity College on Friday.
- The tournament format is round-robin within each of the Pierpont and Trautman divisions. Each team plays four games; all games are made up of 25-minute halves. Except: The championship game will be three 18-minute periods.
- On Saturday, cross-divisional play will feature the 4th-place finishers in each division meeting; then 3rd-place teams, and so on.
- If two teams are tied, head-to-head results will be the tie-breaker.
- If three teams have the same record, the tie-breaker will first go by goal differential and next by head-to-head results.
Paul Grant is an editor and a writer for HockeyJournal.com and Seamans Media. He previously oversaw hockey content at ESPN.com and Sporting News. You can connect with him at pgrant@hockeyjournal.com.
