Victory Honda wins Midget Minor, Major titles on day of founder John Stansik’s passing

By @MichaelCaples –

TAYLOR – The Victory Honda hockey program accomplished a rare feat Sunday night at the Taylor Sportsplex, and it was in honor of their founder and director.

John Stansik passsed away yesterday evening – the same day that his Victory Honda squads captured state titles in both the Midget Minor and Midget Major categories.

The VH Midget Major team took care of business Sunday morning, finalizing a best-of-three series against the Oakland Jr. Grizzlies with a 4-1 victory.

“Great team win, 20 kids all bought in to playing hard and the right way and playing for each other,” said VH Majors coach Brian Burke after their game yesterday morning. “Couldn’t be happier for these guys and John Stansik, who is sick and in the hospital and runs Victory Honda for us, we did it for him.”

At roughly 10 p.m., the VH Minors secured their own state championship with a 1-0 victory over Little Caesars, thanks to Chase Danol’s goal in the third period.

“This year, we put a lot of time and effort for Victory Honda building the midget minor and major programs and things have paid off for both divisions this year,” said VH Minors coach Derek Szajner. “We’re very excited and we would like to thanks John Stansik and Bill Smith for the opportunity of bringing my staff to Victory Honda and getting a great group of boys that basically relentlessly worked hard, learned how to win, being ranked No. 1 all year long is really hard because we’ve gotta get up for every game.

…This win goes to John Stansik, it’s all about John so thank you very much.”