Thunder and lightning and pouring rain didn't stop the Lemont Table Hockey League from holding a pre-season round-robin tournament inside the dry confines of the Pytlewski Dome in soggy Lemont, IL on Saturday, May 10. It was about a year ago that the league held its first-ever tournament on an equally rainy night.
Jim Rzonca, coming off knee surgery Wednesday, managed to win the practice session by going a perfect 7-0 in the pre-season tournament. Rzonca, the runner-up in the Chicago Table Hockey League two years in a row, stood for about a minute in each game, sitting the rest of the time. Also with a strong showing was LTHL defending champion Ron Marsik, the table hockey veteran fresh off a fifth-place finish at the Boston tournament. Marsik's only loss was to Rzonca, 3-1. He ran the table on everyone else. Adam Thill, an up-and-coming teenager, went 4-3, scoring an upset on last season's LTHL runner-up, Scott Pytlewski, who also finished 4-3. The game of the night sounds like it was Pytlewski vs. Rzonca, a rematch of last year's semi-final series won by Scott when Rzonca blew a one-goal lead in the deciding game. This time, Pytlewski held the late lead, only to see Rzonca tie it with seconds left, then put in a defenseman bank shot, normally Scott's specialty, early into OT for a 3-2 win.
The evening's standings follow, but remember, they don't count for anything. Just pre-season practice. It'll all start for real in early June following the Montreal Rose Bowl II tournament.
1. Jim Rzonca 7-0
