Benilde-St. Margaret's Boys' Hockey

ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. -- This weekend, Benilde-St. Maragret's will host the third annual North/South Challenge. The event will take place Dec. 6-7, at the St. Louis Park Recreation center, featuring four of the top boys’ high school hockey teams in Minnesota.

Each year, the event features the Red Knights, along with the Eden Prairie Eagles, as the two South teams. The two north teams in the event are the Brainerd Warriors and Hermantown Hawks.

This year’s varsity schedule opens Friday, with the Class A No. 2 Hawks taking on Class AA No. 1 Eden Prairie at 6 p.m., to be followed by Brainerd and Class AA No. 6 Benilde-St. Margaret’s.

Saturday, the Eagles and Warriors will open play at 12 p.m. with Hermantown facing the Red Knights in the event’s finale to follow.

The North/South Challenge was the idea of Eden Prairie head coach Lee Smith as a way for the four programs to face some of the top competition in the state early in the season. The event is hosted by each of the programs on a rotating basis with a South team hosting one year and a North team hosting the next season.

All four varsity games will be streamed live on MNHockey.TV. In 2020, the event is slated to be hosted by Hermantown.

"This early in the season, your are really looking to get a good measurement of what areas you need to address if you want to make your team stronger," Pauly said. "Playing strong and well-coached programs is the only way to determine that.

"The North/South Challenge offers a great opportunity. Hermantown is always one of the powers in the North, and Brainerd has always been in the conversation since Dave Aus took over the program."

The Warriors have some work to do if they are going to claim the Section 8 title this year and their first trip to state.

"We may take some lumps as the season plays out," Aus said. "But, I honestly think, we are going to be tough to beat at the end of the season so long as we stay healthy and continue our work ethic and competitiveness."

The team's strength lies in it's goaltending and on the blueline. Luke Saiko is back for his second season in goal and will backstop a Warrior team which features six returning letterwinners on defense, which should play into the team's strategy.

"We have four very good defensemen and two very solid goalies," Aus said. "Our system has become a little more structured. Our goal is to hold opponents to as few shots as possible and win low scoring games."

Aus knows his team isn't where they need to be, but he's confident it can get there.

"We have gotten off to a bit of a slow start, as I anticipated that we might," he said. "With a ton of turnover from last season, we have really had to work at plugging some holes that I anticipated we may have.

"The boys have worked very hard to start the season and have shown that they are willing to compete, regardless of the situation, and, at the end of the day, that is all you can ask as a coach."

Although with just one game under their belts, a 6-2 win over Cretin-Derham Hall, the Eagles don't have a lot to measure themselves against yet.

What they have is a stable of quality players. Up front, Eden Prairie features seniors John Mittelstadt, who has committed to play at Minnesota, and Ben Steeves, a Minnesota-Duluth commit.

On the back end, the Eagles feature a pair of highly-touted juniors in Luke Mittelstadt, who is also slated to head to Minnesota, and Harvard commit Mason Langenbrunner.

Where is his team at right now? Smith said they are still wondering.

"We have only played one game," he said. "In that game, we did a lot of excellent things, but also struggled at times.

"I know we'll be challenged immensely (this weekend), so we we will get a new measuring stick of our ability."

"They have been working really hard and pushing each other in practice. We have 20-22 guys that can all play high school hockey, which makes for a great competitive environment in practice."

With that said, Andrews is looking forward to the test his team faces this weekend.

"The past two years, we have had great games with both EP and BSM, and I would expect nothing less again this year," he said. "Both teams are so well-coached and loaded with talent, it is good for our guys to be pushed so hard right out of the gate and it lets us see who is ready for high-end hockey coming into the season."

The Hawks have opened the season with wins over No. 12A Eveleth-Gilbert and No. 18AA Wayzata and Andrews has been pleased with what he's seen.

"I have been impressed with our compete and team speed," he said. "We faced adversity of different types in both games, and the boys rallied around each other and found a way to get big wins.

"We have looked very fast in the first two games,and all of our guys can skate. With our skating we should be able to compete with anyone."

But, Andrews knows his team has room to improve.

"The biggest need of improvement right now is cleaning up our team defense," he said. "Our D are very active, which we encourage, but they must be mindful of when they jump up, not every play is a home run."

The hosts to next year's event, Hermantown, Andrews stated, is looking forward to this weekend.

"We are really looking forward to the challenge of playing two of the best teams in the state on back-to-back nights," he said. "Every year this weekend presents a lot of adversity and thus a lot opportunities for growth and success. It has been a great experience for our program and we look forward to hosting it next year."