Newtown Goaltender Helps Team Connecticut Win Tournament Championship

Newtown’s Markus Paltauf is a goaltender on Team Connecticut which won the New England County Cup youth hockey tourney championship recently.

Paltauf was one of only 17 players selected for his age group (born in 2003) to represent Team Connecticut in the New England County Cup, which was held in Foxboro, Mass from April 26 through May 1. This is a AAA youth hockey tournament featuring state and county teams from the New England area. Paltauf was part of a two-goalie tandem that split the playing time, with each net-minder playing half of every game. Team Connecticut finished with a perfect 6-0 record while outscoring their opponents by a 52-13 margin. Team Connecticut opened the four-game round robin schedule with a dominating 10-0 victory over Team Maine during a Friday afternoon game. Then, after a two hour break the team continued to dominate with an 11-1 win over Team New Hampshire that same day.  Next up was a Saturday mid-day game versus Essex County (Mass) which resulted in a 14-3 win.  In the final round robin game against Middlesex County (Mass) early Sunday morning Team Connecticut put up a 4-1 victory.

This win set up a semifinal matchup with Plymouth County (Mass) in the early afternoon.  This match wound up being the closest game of the tournament for Team Connecticut. Paltauf entered the game halfway through the second period with Team Connecticut leading 5-3. After Plymouth fought back with two goals for the tie, the Newtown goalie shut them down and Team Connecticut scored the winning goal with just 12.4 seconds left in the game to win 6-5 and advance to the finals.

The Championship game was against Team Rhode Island, the only other undefeated team in the tournament. This early afternoon game, the third of the day for both teams, ended with a 7-3 victory for Team Connecticut.