By Dan Hardenbrook
The Manistique Emeralds Varsity Hockey team stayed busy over the holiday break, with three games in four days to wrap up 2024. Last weekend the Emeralds made their annual appearance at the Alpena Blue Line Club Christmas Showcase, taking on two Lower Peninsula co-op groups before heading in the opposite direction for their final game of the calendar year Monday Night in Iron Mountain against the Kingsford Flivvers. The Emeralds wrapped up the tough stretch with a 1-2 record, and head into the new year with an overall season mark of 2-9-1.
The annual Alpena trip has been a memorable one for the Emeralds co-op, with several big breakout performances and moments. This year’s Emeralds squad made the trip south, hoping to turn around a tough start to the season.
And they did: The Emeralds played two of their best games of the season, earning a weekend split. Despite dropping Friday’s matchup with the Lansing-based Capital City Caps 4-1, the Emeralds controlled much of the contest. They outskated and outplayed the Caps in the early going and even after giving up the lead, continued to battle.
The score remained 1-0 until midway in the second period, when a sudden surge gave Capital City a 4-0 lead after a trip of shots found the net in a five-minute span. The Emeralds continued to make life more difficult than their opponents assumed, and Ajay Berger got the Emeralds on the board with a baseball-style score: He swatted a puck out of mid-air in a highlight-reel play. Manistique controlled the pace for most of the contest, and even held a shot-on-goal advantage for a majority of the contest before fading down the stretch.
They would finally break through on Saturday with an impressive wire to wire win, defeating the Tri Valley Thunder, based out of Bay City, 5-1. The Emeralds had another strong start, and this time the hard work finally paid off when Newberry Sophomore Luke Luebkert jumped a pass and turned the steal into a goal from the right circle. The Emeralds, finally with some positive momentum, would not let up. Berger kept his hot streak going when he deflected a shot by Defensemen Matthew Rahilly to double up the Emeralds lead at 2-0 and headed another on the powerplay a short time later to put the Emeralds in firm control.
Manistique senior Co-Captain Carter Lavigne, the team’s leading scorer on the season, added to his total with a beautiful shot from a nearly impossible angle early in the third period to put the Emeralds up 4-0. While the offense finally broke through, their Junior Goaltender Jackson Goudreau was excellent again in net. Goudreau stopped the first 26 shots he saw before finally getting beat and finished the game 32 saves on 33 shots. After Tri Valley got on the board, Luebkert netted his second of the game on a great set up from Luke Benish and Kade Schroeder.
The Emeralds felt the effects of three games in four days, which required three-hour trips in opposite directions and two different time zones. Monday night’s contest against Kingsford was won by the Flivvers 5-2. Berger had a goal and an assist, Lavigne added another score, and Co-Captain Carter Deatsman also picked up an assist.
The Emeralds open 2025 at home inside the Little Bear West Arena this weekend when they take on Grand Rapids Christian Friday at 7 p.m. and Muskegon Mona Shores Saturday at 3 p.m.
