The Columbus Flames 10U hockey team has won four tournaments this season. Team members include, front row from left, Carter Glaser; second row, Connor Hoy, Yuzu Sasaki, Gabe Taqueushi, Camden Miller, Caz Axsom, Anderson Mihay; and back row, coach Nathan Hawley, coach Bill MacDonald, Kemper MacDonald, Alex Wu, Zoe Hawley, Ashlyn Hawley, Thea Meyer, Vincent Chen, Wade Lynch, Joseph Shelton, coach Danny Lynch and coach Ian Mihay.
The Columbus Flames have have gotten better at the right time.
The 10U squad picked up three first-place tournament finishes last month and four this season. They’ll play in one more tournament next weekend to wrap up the season.
The Flames have far exceeded expectations, going 25-18-3 this year before heading to Nashville, Tennessee, to play in the Country and Western Showdown next weekend.
“It’s been awesome,” Flames coach Nathan Hawley said. “Had you told me at the beginning of the season from our first tournament we played that we would be where we’re at right now, I don’t know if I could agree. It’s been awesome to watch these kids develop and grow in the game of hockey.”
The Flames captured first place in the Rudolph’s Revenge Tournament on Dec. 17. They would go on to finish second in the Chicago Midwinter Classic on Jan. 15.
Even though they didn’t win in Chicago, it only fueled them for the next three tournaments. Columbus won the Governor’s Cup in Indianapolis on Feb. 4, the President’s Cup in Pittsburgh on Feb. 19 and the 10U A Gold Buckeye tournament in Oxford, Ohio, on Feb. 25.
Hawley said his team’s motto this year is, “Practice with a purpose.”
“They work hard. Every time they step on the ice, I want them to give me everything that they have, not to me necessarily, but to themselves in what they’re doing,” Hawley said. “Even at 9 or 10-years old, every tournament we played in we came from behind to win the championship. The character and resilience that they’ve shown in doing that. At the Evansville tournament, we played three games in one day just to make it to the championship game because we got beat in our first game in the tournament.”
For the season, Camden Miller leads the team with 46 goals and 26 assists. Caz Axsom has 18 goals and 12 assists, Hudson Raper has 15 goals and three assists, Vincent Chen has four goals and 10 assists, Thea Meyer has six goals and five assists,Anderson Mihay has two goals and five assists, Connor Hoy has two goals and three assists and Alex Wu has one goal and six assists.
“Watching them come out and play as a team and apply the skills that we’ve shown at practice, it’s so much fun,” Hawley said. “My kids never give up. I watch other teams play, especially once they get older that they start to get into this habit and it’s a bad habit of kind of giving up at the end. I always refresh my kids’ memories like, ‘How long does it take to score a goal?’ Seven seconds end to end, that’s all it takes. Watching them go to the last second, they never quit, they never stop, so that’s really fun to watch them do that. Even when they’re losing, they’re not giving up.”
