For the Florida Eels' Squirts, the team concept doesn't stop at the ice.

When players aren't practicing at the Fort Myers Skatium or traveling to tournaments around the state, their parents are taking turns playing host each night.

"There are always sleepovers," said Eels coach Craig Niland. "It's one big hockey family."

That familiarity has created a cohesive unit that has gone from losing games by double digits in recent years to winning the Huntsville (Ala.) Silver Stick Regional Tournament last month.

In that tournament, the 10-under squad beat teams from all over the Southeast to qualify for the Silver Stick International Tournament in Sarnia, Ontario, on Jan. 15-17.

"These kids went crazy," Niland said. "They couldn't believe it."

The players and coaches credited that closeness as the overriding factor in their championship run.

"We're used to playing together and we all know each other," said defenseman James Rowe, 10.

All the time together creates a smoothly operating unit on the ice, with players quick to pick up each other's slack and watch each other's backs.

"There's no individual efforts on the team," Niland said.

Even the post-tournament celebration in Huntsville involved more time together.

"Oh, yeah, we celebrated," said Niland, who has two of his five children, Peyton and Stephanie, on the roster. "With a long, 12-hour bus ride home."

That wasn't the only celebration, though. The parents got in on the act, too.

"One of the dads said, 'If you guys win, we'll jump in the pool,' " wing Asher Markowski, 9, said of the hotel pool in the near-freezing temperatures in Huntsville. "And they all did."

But the celebration is over, and it's been back to work for the Eels. The team has been squeezing in extra practice time every chance it can to get ready for the toughest competition it has seen yet.

"They'll get the experience of knowing what to strive for if they want to compete at the highest level of hockey," said Craig Niland, who was an assistant coach when his oldest son, Marco, made the trip with another Eels team a few years ago. "Everyone looks at Florida and thinks we're weak at hockey.

"That's starting to turn around."

More will be at stake this time than a celebratory dunk in an icy pool. This time, the Eels will have beaten the best in the world. The champion also gets its banner raised in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

"I think it's going to be a lot of fun," Markowski said. "We get to play a bunch of different teams."

Either way, that long plane trip and five days in the same hotel should provide plenty of opportunities for the Eels to drive each other crazy.

"That's one thing that'll never happen," Rowe said. "We'll never get tired of each other."