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Icers win weekend tournament in Las Vegas

The Arizona Icers women's club hockey team went into the fourth annual Las Vegas Women's Hockey Classic with few expectations.

After all, a 0-6 start to the season didn't exactly suggest that the Icers would wind up with the tournament trophy.

But what a difference a weekend makes, as Arizona finished 3-0-1 and won the tournament behind a tenacious defense and solid goaltending from Stephanie Aronson.

The Icers' 1-0 victory over the Columbus (Ohio) Capitals in the championship game Sunday was followed by a raucous celebration inspired by a scene in the movie "Any Given Sunday."

"It's incredible; when we won, we did all these crazy things," sophomore Erin Breidenbach said. "We did this bomb where we all got in a circle, someone acted like they pulled a pin and then we all fell back."

Breidenbach, the team's vice president and treasurer, said the victory came out-of-the-blue.

"Nobody expected this, we were just going to have fun," she said. "We took a victory lap with our trophy. Our trophy was huge."

Arizona, which defeated the Capitals for the second time in the tournament, got a goal just 24 seconds into the game from defender Kristin Mackay.

Aronson and the Icers' defense held off the Capitals' attack for remainder of the contest.

Columbus scored 18 goals in its first two games but could only manage a single goal in their 3-1 loss to the Icers on Saturday, and Aronson stonewalled them for her second shutout of the tournament.

Arizona opened the tournament Thursday with a 0-0 tie against the Austin Roadrunners followed by a 2-1 victory over the San Jose Rebels on Friday.

Breidenbach credited UA's rough start with preparing the team for the tournament.

"The reason our record before was so bad was because we were playing teams that were so much more experienced than us," she said, referring to Arizona State and the Tucson Chili Peppers women's club team. "We were finally playing teams at our level."

Breidenbach said the remainder of the Icers' season is up in the air at the moment.

"We're thinking about doing the tournament again next year," she said. "We're thinking about a tournament in May up in Phoenix. We're going to play ASU again. We'll probably play the Chili Peppers again. We've been talking to teams from Colorado and New Mexico.

"We're just looking for support and fans to come out to our home games."