Wednesday Tourney Notebook: Penalized for cellying, promposals and sweet, saucy lettuce

Fans who tuned into the first quarterfinal on Wednesday via 45TV's free online stream were met with a looping broadcast schedule for the week's games — but no live hockey.

They were, predictably, not pleased.

Luckily, the problem was ironed out by the tail end of the first period between Luverne and Hermantown and fans could watch for free from all over the world.

The Luverne Cardinals made it back to the state tournament for the third time in school history this year, and they made their time at the Xcel Energy Center count despite a 6-0 loss to Hermantown on Wednesday.

First it was with a Benjamin taped to the stick of forward Gavin Reisch, then a promposal written on stick tape from forward Brady Bork in the introductions that was later accepted via tweet.

"I had to say something when I went up there, and everybody says 'hey mom' or 'hey dad,'" Bork said. "I kind of wanted to switch it up, and I hadn't done my promposal yet, so I figured I'd get it out of the way at the 'X.'"

Bork said he swapped out the special stick and played with a normal tape job during the Cardinals' quarterfinal.

Wednesday's second quarterfinal between No. 3 Mahtomedi and Alexandria was affected by several penalty calls, non-calls and a fairly unique odd-man opportunity.

In the first period, Alexandria's Gavin Olson was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after scoring to give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead. The Zephyrs scored on the ensuing power play to tie the game.

Alex coach Josh Meyers said after the game that the officials told him the penalty was for celebrating towards the Mahtomedi student section.

"They said it's been a rule all season long," Meyers said. "They said they let the first one slide. Our first goal, I guess, we did it. He said he let the first one slide but had to call the second."

Meyers went on to add that he hasn't seen those penalties called during the season.

"If he let the first one slide, we didn't know that he let it slide," Meyers said.

The Mahtomedi-Alexandria quarterfinal had another weird sequence in the third period, during what should have been a 4-on-4.

Instead, Mahtomedi accidentally started a faceoff — and played — with five skaters for about half a minute before anyone noticed. Officials reset the clock to go back to the start of the penalties and had the teams play 4-on-4 once they noticed the issue.

"I can give the referees a lot of credit because they took some responsibility on it," Mahtomedi coach Jeff Poeschl said. "The referees said, 'we should have caught it before we dropped the puck.'"

Warroad isn't just the top team in Class A, they also had by far the best hockey hair of the day.

Skaters Jayson Shaugabay and Carson Pilgrim, alongside goaltender Hampton Slukynsky, said that they think their teammates Erick Comstock (#2) and Ryan Lund (#25) had that best 'do's' of the day.

The Warriors sported all kinds of great lettuce and saucy flow, including some killer facial hair. There were a couple of other standouts from the day, see a couple of our favorites below.