Local hockey players heading to National Championships in Denver
TRAVERSE CITY — In the future they’ll be opponents, but they’re teammates and state champions for now.
The Traverse City North Stars 14U AA team recently earned a Bantam State Championship in St. Clair Shores, which qualified the team for the National Championships in Denver this week.
Made up of players from throughout Northern Michigan, including Petoskey, Gaylord, Traverse City, Elk Rapids and Vanderbilt, many have been playing together through the ranks for years.
Out of Petoskey, the team includes Stosh Schultz, an eighth grader at Petoskey Middle School as well as Madden Pateman, a freshman at PHS.
Both Schultz and Pateman have grown up through the Petoskey Area Hockey Association (PAHA), with Schultz also part of the Petoskey Squirt B team in 2019 that captured a state championship.
In this year’s state tournament, the North Stars earned a 2-1 state title win over Marquette Bantam and capped off a 5-0 tourney.
The national championships will now take place in Denver beginning on Thursday, March 30, with the North Stars competing in the 16-team bracket that’ll include games against the Cheektowaga Warriors out of New York, Northern Colorado Jr. Eagles and Valley Forge Cardinals from Pennsylvania.
More games will follow depending on results in their first three. The national championship game is then scheduled to take place in Denver on Monday, April 3.
The state championship for Traverse City comes as its first since the 2007 season.
The complete team for the North Stars includes: Stosh Schultz, Madden Pateman, Kelvin Kloosterman, Brady Lewis, Kaid Pawlanta, Brody Weston, Brody Sorenson, Ben Burley, Blake Weaver, Joel Ziecina, Spencer Anderson, Graiden Insana, Rowan Blain, Drew Charland, Andrew Beattie, Sawyer Rogers, Tyler Boynton Fisher and Harper Moore.
Rogers, Pawlanta and Sorenson are all out of Gaylord.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Local hockey players heading to National Championships in Denver
