Lumberjacks and Bighorns Claim Spots in Fraser Cup Semifinal Round

The 2024 NA3HL Fraser Cup Championship continued on Thursday, March 21st with two games that saw the Granite City Lumberjacks and Helena Bighorns claim spots in the semifinal round. 

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 2 Recaps:

Fraser Cup Round-Robin, Pool A: Gillette Wild 1 vs. Granite City Lumberjacks 6: The Granite City Lumberjacks took a statement 6-1 win over the Granite City Lumberjacks, claiming their spot to the Fraser Cup semifinal round. Granite City went ahead 2-0 with goals from Ashton Ericksen (1:15) and Parker Comstock (13:48) to end the first period. In the second, Gillette found the scoresheet with Wylee Gladen (19:26) making the score 2-1 ending the second period. The entire third period belonged all to the Lumberjacks with Blayne Mortenson (2:02), Ashton Ericksen (5:13), Jake Lange (17:21) and Finn Greeley (19:02). Granite City goalie Ryan Lehet was near perfect between the pipes, turning away 30 shots. The Lumberjacks will faceoff again on Saturday to take on the Pool B 2nd placed team. 

Fraser Cup Round-Robin, Pool B: Northeast Generals 1 vs. Helena Bighorns 4: The Helena Bighorns secured their spot in the Fraser Cup semifinal round after taking down the Northeast Generas in a 4-1 game. In the opening period, Jack Lambert (9:37) got the Bighorns on the board. Later in the period, Caiden Hess (17:45) evened the game, 1-1. The second period was all Helena with Braden Cunningham (1:39) , Ty Moore (3:29) and Mason Eggen (9:04) scoring to secure the win, 4-1. Helena netminder Jesse Schindel stopped 15 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