Seniors Wentzel and Goodell featured in Minn. hockey guidebook

 

Albert Lea seniors Cole Wentzel and Carson Goodell have been tabbed as two of the top-100 senior hockey players in the state of Minnesota and will be featured in the 2018-19 High School Boys’ Hockey Guidebook.

“It’s pretty awesome,” Goodell said. “There are a lot of good hockey players our age in the state of Minnesota, so to be selected is pretty cool.”

Wentzel echoed his teammate’s comments about being selected for the honor.

“I think it says a lot about the season we had last year,” Wentzel said. “We had a good season and hopefully that carries on to this year.”

Wentzel and Goodell join the ranks of a handful of previous Tigers who have been selected for the guidebook, including Bergan Lundak, Sam Chalmers, Austin Dulitz and Mitchell Evens.

Although the beginning of hockey season is still a few months away, both boys have  been working on their games in the offseason.

“We work out three days a week at Snap Fitness,” Wentzel said. “There’s  a program there for hockey. We skated the whole month of June and we all go to the NA3 camps.”

The duo will return as seniors to a team that finished last season with a record of 19-6-2.

Despite the stellar team record, the season ended on a sour note in the section semifinals, after the Tigers gave up a lead in the final 30 second s and went on to lose the game in overtime.

Goodell said that loss has been one of the biggest factors motivating him to keep working over the summer.

“We don’t want that to happen again,” Goodell said. “That’s going to be our main focus is not letting that happen again.”

This year’s team will have a few holes to fill after 11 seniors graduated from last season. However, Wentzel and Goodell are confident in the work they’ve put in and the group of young players who are coming up in the program.

“I think were going to be really fast,” Wentzel said. “We’ll be as big if not bigger than everyone in our conference, and we return quite a few of our starters on defense.”

The Tigers are currently set to open their 2018 schedule with a home game against the Huskies of Owatonna at 7:15 p.m. Nov. 29.