The 2018 Schwan's Cup High School Hockey Tournament concluded on January 1 with an announcement of a name change and a new sponsor.
After 18 years, the Schwan's Food Company, based in Marshall, MN is ending sponsorship of the high school hockey tournament that has taken place at the Schwan's Super Rink in Blaine, Ridder Arena on the University of Minnesota campus and Aldrich Arena in Maplewood.
The National Sports Center, which runs the tournament has partnered with the Herb Brooks Foundation and has renamed the event The Herb Brooks Holiday Classic, in honor of the late coach.
This season, there were five varsity girls divisions of eight teams and three junior varsity divisions that added up to 64 teams. On the boys side, there were 28 varsity teams and 32 junior varsity teams bringing the total to 60. The top boys division only had four teams and was played in a round robin format instead of a bracket. The Gold Division champion was the Cretin-Derham Hall Raiders.
In 2018, both the St. Louis Park Oriole varsity and junior varsity teams participated in the Schwan's Cup Silver Division. The varsity beat the Minneapolis Novas in the quarterfinals and got trounced by a team that played in the state Class AA tournament the St. Michael-Albertville Knights. However, they would beat St. Cloud in overtime to win the third place trophy.Avery Pittman scored the game winning goal 2:51 in overtime. As for the junior varsity team, they would advance to the semifinals with a 3-2 win over Minneapolis but they couldn't put the puck in the net in their next two games as they fell to the eventual champion Park of Cottage Grove Wolfpack 4-1 and were shut out by the Tartan Titans 2-0.
A new era begins in December with the inaugural Herb Brooks Holiday Classic.
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