Seven for Seven: Warriors Gold Win the 2026 Warrior Classic

Pittsburgh Warriors Gold are national champions again. At the 2026 USA Hockey–Long Drink Warrior Classic in Utica, New York, the team ran the table — five games, five wins — and skated off with the Tier IV title, the seventh national championship in program history.

The weekend opened with a statement: a 6-2 win over the New Jersey Warriors. From there the defense took over — back-to-back shutouts, 3-0 over the New England Battalion and 5-0 against the Motor City Veterans — before a 7-1 semifinal rematch with Motor City set up the final.

In the championship, Gold met the New England Battalion once more and closed it out 3-1, capping an undefeated run and bringing another banner home to Pittsburgh.

Keith Costantino led all scorers with five goals; Danny Howe and Walter Riggs each posted 3-3-6, and Silas Watkins chipped in four goals. In net, Nathan Anderson was a wall — 5-0 with just four goals against all weekend and a .976 save percentage.

The Warriors also iced a Black squad in Tier V, and the bracket was unforgiving — they finished 1-4 against a loaded field. But they went out with a highlight no scoreboard can measure: in a 4-3 win over the Flower City Warriors, Steve Cahall buried his first career Warrior goal, set up by Ashley Chamboredon.

What the Black squad's record won't show is how much they meant to the weekend. Between their own shifts they were the loudest voices in the building for the Gold side — banging the glass through both shutouts, first up the tunnel to mob the champions, every bit as fired up for someone else's goal as their own. Milestone pucks made the rounds of the room like trophies, from Cahall's first-ever Warrior goal to every guy who earned his, and nobody celebrated harder than the teammate standing next to him. Off the ice the whole club moved as one — Gold and Black packed into the same booths for team dinners and a round after the games, trading hats and coins with the very opponents they'd battled hours earlier. That's the part of the Warrior Classic no box score can hold: for men who came back to this game to get back on their feet, showing up for each other is the entire point — and the Black squad showed up for everybody.

**Seven for seven.** The seventh banner in program history carried a number that means everything to this club — it was for Sean O'Rourke, number 7. A teammate and a brother, gone but never far from the room. The Warriors carried number 7 with them all weekend, and brought the seventh one home for him.

Gratitude, too, to the Motor City Veterans, who paused to remember Sean during the tournament — a gesture that says everything about what the Warrior brotherhood really is. And to every team Pittsburgh shared the ice with in Utica: thank you for the games and the grit. Different jerseys, same fight.

It's the program's seventh national title — across the Warrior Classic, the Warrior National Championship, and the Hendrickson Hockey Festival, from Las Vegas to Coral Springs to Utica. For a club built to get injured and disabled veterans back on the ice, a banner, a first goal, and a number on a jersey all count for exactly the same thing: another reason to keep showing up — for the game, and for each other.