The Alien Invasion is Over.

Many doubted that an event of this magnitude would ever actually happen. Last year, 6 hockey players from Des Moines and 1 from Wisconsin decided to give the Labatt's USA Pond Hockey event a try. Once they returned, they feverishly spread the word amongst their teammates and gathered the interest of more players. They thought they could possibly field 2 teams, but with the interest shown by all players, and it was discussed to bring 3 teams. There were 20 players interested in going and in the end 3 teams were indeed formed.

The teams of Polar Alien, Bi-Polar Alien and Tri-Polar Alien consisted of Brendan McCallum, Chris LeFleur, Nate Brand, Scott Blomquist, Adam Keller, Paul Adams, Mike Dylo, Mark Dylo, Pat Houlihan, Aaron Clutts, Mike Beede, Shane Bast, Adam Lowell, Jeremy Knipper, Joe Bafia, Mike Fascian, Matt Johnson, Mike Pedersen and Steve Kuzynowski. This was 100% of the local Alien Hockey team (plus Blomquist and Bast who don't even live in Iowa any more). The addition of Johnson and Pedersen from the Cup O Kryptonite made this a perfect group.

In the past, may groups have tried to get teams together and venture to play some hockey away from Des Moines. This shows that it can be done. We even had the pleasure of running into (and playing against) the Untouchables from DM.

In the end, our 3 teams collectively went 2-7 for the tournament. However, the losses were definitely off-set by the quality "tent time", hot tub, chili gathering, Gee O's bar, pasta dinner night, poker playing, Boondockers, Pick & Save, Fish Fry and so much more.

Glad I could spend 4 days with my closest friends in sub-zero weather, 9 hours from Iowa! 361 days and counting to next year...... can anyone say Quad-Polar?