The Irish started off with a tough draw against the Volunteer Pool Bearcats from Thunder Bay, Ontario skating to a 2-2 tie against the eventual champions.  The Irish opened the scoring with a first period goal by Ben Pilger with assists to Brockton Winkler and Matthias Klinkner.  The Bearcats scored halfway through the second period to tie it up, but the Irish answered right back  with a goal from Charlie Tiede on a rebound off a Matt Boerboom shot one minute later.  The Bearcats evened it up once again with a minute left in the second period.  Jonah Wangsness took over the third period with a couple of nice saves in goal to earn the split.  The Irish played a strong team defense against the Bearcats, keeping the opponents to only 16 shots on goal.  In the second game of pool play, the Irish found the net often with a 7-3 victory over New Ulm/Sleepy Eye.  Ethan Smith started the onslaught with an assist from Ty Salak midway through the first.  He then returned the favor in setting up Ty on the power play for a quick 2-0 lead for the Irish.  Ty and Ethan each scored again in the second with an added assist from George Dawson on Ethan’s second goal.  Jake Unangst added a third goal for the Irish with a blast from the point to stake them to a 5-2 lead after 2 periods.  In the third, Brockton Winkler scored shorthanded for the Irish with an assist to Ben Pilger and Wes Ebner tallied an  unassisted goal to close out NUSE with a 7-3 win.  Next up was Edina.  The Irish were led by a 4 goal explosion from Brockton Winkler to take a 6-4 victory over the cake-eaters.  He scored his first two goals in the first period to stake the Irish to a 2-0 lead after one.  In the second, Edina scored to cut the lead to 2-1, but Ethan Smith answered right back for the Irish.  After Edina scored with just under a minute to play, Brockton netted his third of the night just 30 seconds later.  Charlie Tiede opened the scoring in the third with assists to Matt Boerboom and Shay McConnell.  Edina responded with a goal midway through the period, but again, Winkler answered 17 seconds later with an assist to Ben Pilger to put the game away.  Edina scored in the closing minutes for the final 6-4 Irish victory.  On to the semi-finals.  They again found themselves playing a team from the Thunder Bay area, but dropped this one 5-0 against the Neebing Hawks.  After giving up 1 early goal to the Hawks, Jonah Wangsness came up strong stopping nearly 20 shots through almost 2 periods.  The Hawks then found the back of the net 3 times in the last 1:30 of the second to take a commanding 4-0 lead after 2.  The Irish played a determined third period and allowed only 1 goal and just missing on a couple of their own scoring chances.  This left the Irish to play the host Chaska Chanhassen team for the third place trophy.  The Irish brought home the hardware with a 3-1 win over the host team.  Ben Pilger roofed the first for the Irish on a nice set-up from Brockton Winkler as the Irish took a 1-0 lead.  Chaska Chan responded with a goal in the first to knot it up at 1 after 1 period of play.  Jonah Wangsness locked it down from there making several nice saves to keep Chaska off the board the remainder of the way with help from Jake Unangst, Jake Walberer, Weston Ebner and Ben Hoover on defense.  Ethan Smith poked in his own rebound in the second to stake the Irish to a 2-1 lead after 2 and Ty Salak tucked away an insurance goal in the third off a blast from Weston Ebner to deliver the Irish their first trophy of the season.  Way to go Irish!