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| Invaders History | |||||||
| Year 2000/2001 - Beginners Session | |||||||
| Upon completion of HNA's beginner session, Jamie Jones was elected Captain and the Invaders had their first game in winter of 2001. | |||||||
| The Invaders took control of the season and finished in first place in the regular season, led by the scoring of Gary Enos and the goaltending of Tom Schmidt. | |||||||
| The Invaders faced the Shock in the championship game.� With less than 2:00 minutes remaining, Lou Stoney scored the game willing goal to give the Invaders a 3-2 victory and their first championship. | |||||||
| Summer HNA/Detroit House League | |||||||
| Detroit Invaders proceeded to play through the spring and summer.� At this time, Anthony Ligi and Rob Berry became full-time players of the Invaders.� An emotional championship game followed into the spring versus the Detroit Shock.� | |||||||
| The Shock had revenge from the winter on their mind going into the game.� However, Invaders took control of the championship game early and never looked back.� As the game progressed, so did the Shock's tempers and a rivalry was formed as Don Berry and new recruit Rob Berry showed the Shock how the two brothers would be the grinders for the Invaders for years to come.� You saw the Invaders hold up their second division title in as many seasons played.� | |||||||
| For the summer HNA season, the Invaders did not see the same success as the winter or spring but as the summer progressed, the Invaders improved as they played higher division teams and prepared to take on the C3 Division in the 2001/2002 Season.� | |||||||
| Year 2001/2002 - C3 Division | |||||||
| The Invaders added a few different faces for the 2001/2002 Season.� Bill Dietz and Dave Caragay joined as free agents coming from other HNA teams.� Anthony Ligi and Rob Berry continued to play from the prior summer/spring.� | |||||||
| Moving up to C3 turned to be a larger task than expected.� Invaders were matched well with the Shock and battled hard with the Moose and Galaxy all season.� Invaders stayed with their prior season equation of great goaltending and Gary Enos goal scoring.� Invaders ended the 2001/2002 season with five losses and a share of the regular season crown.� | |||||||
| The play-offs were as intense as the regular season.� Invaders had one loss to the Moose after defeating the Galaxy.� They had to beat the Moose two consecutive games to win the championship and a bid to Toronto.� The Invaders won the first game and found themselves in overtime in the second game.� During the overtime, Bill Dietz earned his place on the team by scoring the game-winning goal and giving the Invaders their second HNA regular season title.� This year it earned them an invitation to Toronto. | |||||||
| In Toronto, the Invaders played well but did not have all their key pieces on Friday night and lost their first game.� However, the team rebounded and won their next two games.� The two game winning streak did not earn them a spot to the final day and they were eliminated on Saturday due to their Friday loss.� | |||||||
| The bad news did not stop there when they found out their captain for the past two years would not be returning for the following season.� The Invaders did not play that summer and found they would be losing their goalie and another three players due to injuries and other personal reasons.� | |||||||
| The team played with various other teams.� However, the majority of the team played in clinics at Suburban Hockey School, House Leagues and on other summer HNA teams thanks to the cooperation of the Shock and Roadrunners. | |||||||
| Upon Jamie Jones' resignation due to injury, the team voted for Lou Stoney to become the captain for the 2002/2003 season. | |||||||
| Year 2002/2003 - C2 Division | |||||||
| The Invaders started the 2002/2003 campaign in C3, due to the Invaders excellent performance, received a promotion to C2.� The team noticed strong improvements from the prior year players, accompanied with key draft pick-ups of goalie Chris Woolf, defensemen Brian Guyot, Mark Moine, Michael Casmer and wingers Al Harris and Steve Valiquette; the Invaders were ready to face the C2 Division. | |||||||
| The Invaders strolled through the regular season with huge offensive numbers by Gary Enos, accompanied by the goal play of Chris Woolf, earning themselves the #1 seed for the playoffs and an 18-2 record. | |||||||
| The playoffs turned to be more competitive than expected with the first two games winning by one goal each game.� The championship found all the new recruits earning their way onto the team.� Steve Valiquette scored two goals in the play-offs and Brian Guyot scored two goals in the championship game, which included the game-winning goal.� Chris Woolf had 1.00 goals against average for the entire playoffs.� | |||||||
| The Toronto tournament turned out to be one of a lot of controversy.� Some players could not attend due to the SARS scare on top of other personal commitments, which caused players to miss part or all of the Toronto Tournament.� However, the ten players who attended fought hard the first three games were they went undefeated with a 1-0-2 record and won a birth to Sunday.� A step the Invaders missed the season before.� Even with the strong performances by Steve Valiquette and Anthony Ligi accounting for 8 goals in the tournament, the Invaders could not overcome the small bench and the fatigue and eventually lost in the semi-finals with the belief they could have won with the attendance of a couple more players.� Again after the tournament the Invaders were faced with bad news as the Invaders found out that Bill Dietz would be permanently suspended from HNA and not allowed to play in the fall season.�� | |||||||
| Detroit Invaders are playing the 2003 summer season with a number of different faces and looking forward to the fall.� Stay tuned for a summer history. | |||||||