Last year, the Allegheny Badgers Tier II 16U boys ice hockey team won the Mid-Am District title, advanced to nationals in Amherst, N.Y., and brought home third place in the 3A bracket.
Seventeen of the 20 players from that team remained together and moved up to the 18U level.
The Badgers again will play in a national tournament. This time, however, they will do it in their home arena.
Palmer Imaging Arena in Delmont, along with Pittsburgh Ice Arena in New Kensington, will host the three USA Hockey 18U national championship tournaments Wednesday through Sunday.
“The kids are excited,” Badgers 18U coach Josh Fajt said. “I don’t think it has hit them yet that this is their last week as a team. A majority of them are seniors this year. They have their last practice (Monday), and then it gets real on Wednesday.”
The Badgers Tier II 18U team, the host team for the 2A tournament, features players from Valley, Franklin Regional, Hempfield, Albert Gallatin, Norwin, Penn-Trafford, Central Catholic, Latrobe, Morgantown (W.Va.), Greensburg-Salem and Indiana high schools.
The Badgers (19-23-7) will begin play at 9:15 a.m. Wednesday at Palmer and return to Palmer for a game at 3 p.m. Thursday. Friday’s round-robin contest is at 1:15 p.m. at Pittsburgh Ice.
The quarterfinals are at 11 a.m. Saturday at Palmer and Pittsburgh Ice with the semifinals set for 6:15 and 6:30 at Palmer.
The 2A title game will be at 10 a.m. Sunday at Palmer.
“We have the experience that not a lot of these teams have, and hopefully we can use that to our advantage,” Fajt said. “We also played one of the toughest schedules in the country this year. We made a deep run last year. We lost the semifinal game in overtime, so that is a motivating factor for them.
“Playing at home in a tournament like this can go either way. Sometimes, when traveling and the team is together the whole time, it can be a strong bonding experience, and the players draw strength from that. But it is also nice to be at home in familiar and comfortable surroundings.”
The comfort level also will be on the side of the Armstrong Arrows, who play out of Belmont Ice Complex in Kittanning.
Armstrong, 44-6-10 overall and ranked eighth in the country in Tier II 18U by MyHockey Rankings, rolled through the Mid-Am tournament to claim the title and the automatic bid to nationals.
The Arrows have 3A round-robin games at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Pittsburgh Ice, at 1 p.m. Thursday at Palmer and at 9:15 a.m. Friday at Pittsburgh Ice.
The 3A quarterfinals start at 9 a.m. Saturday, and the semifinals are at 4 p.m. at Palmer.
The title game is at 11 a.m. Sunday.
The 1A division will go from the round-robin games directly to the semifinals Saturday with the championship game at 8:30 a.m. Sunday.
A total of 36 teams — eight in the 1A bracket, 12 in 2A and 16 in 3A — will come in from throughout the country.
The Mid-Am district, of which all of the Pittsburgh area teams are members, nominated the Badgers and Palmer Imaging Arena to apply to host the championship tournaments.
USA Hockey, headquartered in Colorado, made the decision that the local application was worthy to have a tournament placed in the area.
“We found out this time last year that we would be a host for the 18U tournaments,” said Mindy Ulyas, the general manager for Palmer Imaging and Pittsburgh Ice arenas and the scheduler for the Badgers organization.
“Planning started immediately. The past three months, so many people have been working behind the scenes to get the facilities in top shape and everything else in order to welcome all the teams this week.”
Ulyas said the Badgers and Arrows organizations, both arenas and others are excited to host more than 50 games from Wednesday through Sunday.
“We were in shock when we found out, and we are so very humbled and honored to have this opportunity to host such an event in the area for Western Pennsylvania hockey,” Ulyas said.
Pittsburgh will be well represented this week at USA Hockey national tournaments all over the country.
Pittsburgh Pens Elite has four boys teams at Youth Tier I tournaments, starting Tuesday, in Plymouth, Mich., Fargo, N.D., and Las Vegas.
A pair of Pens Elite girls teams will play at Tier I tournaments, beginning Tuesday, in Wesley Chapel, Fla.
The Steel City Ice Renegades boys Tier II 16U team starts its national tournament Wednesday in Dallas.
The South Pittsburgh Rebellion and Steel City Selects will have five teams combined in girls Tier II tournaments this week in Sioux Falls, S.D., Green Bay, Wisc., and East Lansing, Mich.
Follow all of the nationals action locally and throughout the country at nationals.usahockey.com/.