Friday, February 23, 2007, fresh off of finals week, Palmer men's hockey took the ice at the International Ice Center in Romeoville, IL. Palmer entered the tournament in the top seat by clinching first place in the regular season. The team made an incontestable play-offs run going undefeated in league play during the second half of the season, and edging out regional heavyweight Illinois State University (ISU) by just one point. Set to take on 4th ranked Bradley University (BU) the Dragons felt confident despite a controversial loss to the Braves earlier in the season. Second ranked ISU drew the high scoring McKendree Bearcats. This game was expected to be a shootout as both teams boasted top scorers with over 80 points.

Just as Palmer began to apply pressure in the first period, the lights in the arena went out, and stayed out for several minutes. After somewhat of a slow restart the Dragons managed to jump ahead when fellow 3rd tri students Sean Gallagher and Brian Ferry began punishing Bradley defenders, after the onslaught of physical play forward Gary Bowman was left open to log the game's first goal.

Late in the period Randy Kloss made a great individual effort and buried a power play goal to give the Dragons a 2-0 lead going into the locker room. The second period was all Palmer, Kloss along with fellow classmate Brian Wickstrom and 2nd tri standout Dan Bailey began to take over the Bradley Braves minute by minute. Each player scored a goal in the period, each goal more of a highlight reel than the next. Kloss further portrayed his dominance by netting his third goal of the game early in the 3rd period giving him the everillusive playoff hat trick. The Dragons logged a dominating 7-1 victory, backstopped by 1st tri goal minder Joe Tepper who turned down 20 of 21 shots.

February 24, 9:00 a.m. for “all the marbles,” a sleepy eyed Palmer crew showed up to the rink in dazzling mustaches, jaw dropping authentic 70's clothes, and with them they brought Nick Alfiere sporting the most astonishing three piece suit in the league. They were facing off against rival Illinois State University, who previously had Palmer's number during the regular season (0-1-1). An always-intense ISU squad and their excessively large coaching staff looked confident after dominating McKendree in the early round. Despite the early game time, the coachless Palmer squad came out blazing. The Dragon forwards got the party started just 0:28 seconds into the game when Brian Ferry literally spoon fed forward Gary Bowman in front of the ISU net for an easy goal. ISU didn't wait long to answer, tying the game just minutes later. The first period was riddled with action as both teams battled for the lead with crushing hits and rapid scoring. Defensemen Brad Brzezinski and Jon McDonald both recently returning from injury made their presence felt on the blue line with a barrage of sinister hits. After an intense first period the teams went to the locker room with a 3- 3 deadlock behind another goal from Bowman and the late period heroics of power play specialist Mark Ferry.

The Dragons started the second period with the man advantage and peppered ISU goal tender, John Orlak, with shots but it was a futile effort. Orlak stood strong and his team rallied around him scoring 3 unanswered goals in the period sending them to the intermission with a convincing 6-3 lead.

Despite the solid play and veteran leadership of players like Sean Lovdahl, Nick Alfieri, and Seth Mullen the Dragons fell short to a well conditioned highly skilled ISU team, scoring only once more late in the third period Palmer rendered the title to ISU in a hard fought 6-4 loss.

When asked about the loss, leading scorer Sean Gallagher said, “It is disappointing to work so hard and come up short, it is kind of an empty feeling.” In light of the championship loss Gallagher said he was “excited about next season”, and that his expectations of this season had far been exceeded. The Dragons will return most all of their championship contending team including first year goal tending phenom Tony Giralmo, and hard working forwards Eric Haroldson and Jason Hoffman. A tropical Canadian vacation enticed veteran goaltender Enrico Dolcecore to forgo this years play-offs; manager Rich Ciccala played his last game as a Dragon just before playoffs in the first ever Chiro Cup, a fitting departure as he was a key factor in establishing the hugely successful tournament.

Special thanks must go out to Dr. Enders and his lovely wife for all their support and thankless efforts, and to all the fans who support their fellow classmates in representing Palmer Chiropractic in the hockey community.