It's right into the fire for the Cloquet-Esko-Carlton girls hockey team this week. On Friday the Jacks will travel to St. Louis Park where they will play Benilde-St. Margaret's and on Saturday it is off to Stillwater to play the Ponies.
"Benilde is a private school that has been to the state tournament a number of times and frequently turns out Division I players," said CEC coach Dick Bartholdi. "We have staged some epic battles with them in the past and we did manage to defeat them in the Schwan's Cup for the championship a couple of years ago, but they have held the edge recently."
While Benilde-St. Margaret did lose quite a few players to graduation, it might not mean they've lost strength.
"Being a private school they seem to reload every year," commented Bartholdi. "Traditionally, they are the fastest team we play year in and year out."
Stillwater, a team that won the state championship two years ago, will be the Jacks opponent on Saturday at 3 p.m. They return a strong nucleus of players who were on the state championship team two years ago.
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"Stillwater has a gigantic program with lots of female athletes," remarked Bartholdi. "I don't recall if we've ever won both games against these two teams [which] we have started our season against most years."
CEC is well known throughout the state for consistently playing one of the toughest schedules.
"We play the best teams because our kids want to play the best," explained Bartholdi. "We have a tradition and the best love playing against our well-disciplined kids and it certainly shows the flaws in the coaching staff when we don't win."
It also gives the coaches a chance to see what top teams are doing and what the Jacks need to work on in order to stay at the high level they have achieved since the beginning of the program under Bartholdi.
Last week, the Jacks headed south to scrimmage against Maple Grove, St. Cloud Tech and Edina.
"A scrimmage is just a scrimmage with a lot of experimenting going on," Bartholdi said. "The coaches are very happy with the way things went and we have received many compliments by the metro teams about our girls. The most interesting thing is how the goaltending has improved in the girl's game."
