Lumberjacks and Bighorns win on Day 1 of Fraser Cup

The 2024 NA3HL Fraser Cup Championship began on Wednesday, March 20th with two exciting round-robin games as the Granite City Lumberjacks and Bighorns both brought home wins. 

The 2024 NA3HL Fraser Cup Championship, which takes place from March 20-24 at the St. Peters Rec Plex in St. Peters, Missouri. Six teams have advanced to the season-ending event, which annually crowns the NA3HL National Playoff Champion.

A round-robin format with two pools will be implemented, with the top two teams in each pool advancing to the semifinals, where they will then cross over to play the other top two teams from the other pool. The winners of the semifinals will advance to the Fraser Cup Final. The six teams that advanced to the Fraser Cup Championship Tournament were seeded 1-5 based on their division’s performance against other divisions at the 2023 NA3HL Showcase. The wild card team is the 6th seed.

Games can be seen live on NAHLTV

For more information about the Fraser Cup, please visit: http://na3hl.com/fraser-cup/

The seeding for the event will be as follows:

Pool A: #1 Granite City Lumberjacks (West), #4 West Bend Power (Central), #6 Gillette Wild (Wild Card)

Pool B: #2 Helena Bighorns (Frontier), #3 Louisiana Drillers (South), #5 Northeast Generals (East)

Day 1 Recaps:

Fraser Cup Round-Robin, Pool A: West Bend Power 2 vs. Granite City Lumberjacks 4: The Granite City Lumberjacks added a goal in both the first and second periods that was followed up by adding two more in the third for  a 4-2 win against the West Bend Power. In the opening period of the 2024 Fraser Cup Championship, Jack Louko (4:48) netted the only goal of the frame to get Granite City ahead 1-0. In the second period, Cole Fenske (3:14) scored for West Bend, evening the game 1-1. Later in the period, Parker Comstock (11:08) took back the lead for the Lumberjacks, 2-1 to end the period. In the third, Thomas Gerum (3:53) added to the Lumberjacks score to make it 3-1. West Bend answered back with Nik Johnson (9:38) to get the score within a goal, 3-2. Later into the third, Thomas Gerum (14:29) netted his second of the contest for a 4-2 final score. Granite netminder Ryan Lehet turned away 18 shots in the win. 

Fraser Cup Round-Robin, Pool B: Louisiana Drillers 3 vs. Helena Bighorns 7: The Helena Bighorns dominated the Louisiana Drillers in a 7-3 game. In the first period, Gavin Barr (0:56) scored early for Helena. Jack Lambert (11:41) added another Bighorns goal to extend the lead, 2-0. Late in the period, Brody Neish (14:03) got the Drillers on the board to end the period with a 2-1 score. The second period was all Helena with Gavin Barr (4:22) and Finn Theriault (16:05) for a 4-1 lead. In the third the game went back and forth until the end. Camden Cunningham (3:01), Cai Robinson (12:36 and 19:36) scored for the Bighorns. Louisiana got on the scoresheet with Jake Bergstrom (7:24) and Brody Neish (14:45) scoring his second. Bighorns netminder Jesse Schindel was great in net stopping 18 shots in the win. 

2024 Fraser Cup Championship Schedule (all times Central)

Wednesday, March 20: Granite City Lumberjacks vs. West Bend Power, 4pm | Helena Bighorns vs. Louisiana Drillers, 7pm

Thursday, March 21: Granite City Lumberjacks vs. Gillette Wild, 4pm | Helena Bighorns vs. Northeast Generals, 7pm

Friday, March 22: West Bend Power vs. Gillette Wild, 4pm | Louisiana Drillers vs. Northeast Generals, 7pm

Saturday, March 23: Pool A 1st place vs. Pool B 2nd place, 4pm | Pool B 1st place vs. Pool A 2nd place, 7pm

Sunday, March 26: Fraser Cup Final, 4pm