Escanaba goalie Culley Hayes defends practice shots during warm-ups against Negaunee on Jan. 28, 2025 at the Hannahville Ice & Turf Complex. (Adam Hinch/Daily Press)

ESCANABA — Players and the community paid respects tonight to long-time Escanaba youth hockey coach Mike Zuidema who recently died.

Zuidema coached all the Esky players at some point in their hockey careers and Tuesday night the Eskymos defeated Negaunee 12-4 at the Hannahville Ice & Turf Complex.

Esky freshman Nick Martinson had a hat trick for the Eskymos.

Martinson scored his first goal with 12:05 to go in the second period to put the Eskymos up 4-2. Martinson then scored his second goal of the game on the power play with 5:15 to go in the second period, extending the lead to 6-3. Seconds later, Martinson found the back of the net again to complete the hat trick.

“It felt awesome to get the hat trick,” Martinson said. “I got the one on the power-play. Then came back off the face-off and got it by the goalie for the third goal.”

With 1:56 to go in the second period, sophomore Nolan Bink found the back of the net on a power-play goal to extend the Eskymos lead to 8-3.

“I thought we were kind of sloppy in our decision making tonight,” Eskymos coach Andy Johnson said. “We want to stay out of the box and get on the power-play which keeps our guys fresh and we have a pretty good power-play scoring unit.”

The Eskymos piled it on in the third period as junior Owen Labonte scored with 15:52 to go to extend the Eskymos lead to 9-3. Griffin Johnson found the back of the net with 5:17 to play to put the Eskymos up 10-4.

Esky sophomore Brody Levesque also scored with 4:20 to play and the Eskymos led 11-4.

Esky junior Graham Johnson had a pair of first period goals for the Eskymos who led Negaunee 3-2 after the opening stanza.

“We were giving up some odd man rushes that we didn’t want to give up in the first period,” Graham Johnson said. “We got some power-play opportunities in the second period that we were able to capitalize on and that’s what fueled us tonight.”

Negaunee was led by senior Aydan Miles who also had a hat trick in the loss.

Miles scored the Miners first goal with 11:04 to go in the first period that cut the Eskymos lead to 2-1.

Miles found the back of the net again with 6:58 to go in the second period to cut the deficit to 5-3 and scored with 11:54 to make it 9-4.

The Eskymos will be back in action this weekend as they travel to Trenton for a weekend set with Salem and Trenton.