Oct 19, 2015 | tmainville | 1758 views
Huskies Minor Bantam White One Penalty Shot Away From Second Tournament Title In As Many Weekends
The Minor Bantam White MD team attended its second tournament in as many weekends. This was a battle to the very end, losing the championship in shoot out after four overtime rounds and three shoot out battles.
On the second weekend of back to back tournaments, the rinks were full of life with the red and white Hamilton Huskies. The fan-wear was out in full colour and the noise makers made the ceiling shake during what was to be a great finish to a fun tournament, even if not the way we had hoped. A new experience for many was the trumpet player escort travelling with the Orleans Blues, it added a completely new feel to the rink for sure!
The tournament got off to a somewhat slow start, with the Huskies facing off against Stoney Creek in a one sided battle with a finish of 8-1 for the Huskies. The Stoney Creek team came with heart but the Huskies skill was simply too much for the Warriors to fight off. The second game pitted the Huskies against the Orleans team, one that the Huskies had been lucky enough to size up earlier in the day, in Orleans bid to overtake Cambridge. The team knew it would be battle and the game was tight, with a lower number of shots, higher number of hits and excellent play on both ends. The Huskies were able to put one in closer to game end and took the game with a final score of 3-2. The third game saw an equally strong opponent in Cambridge. The Huskies battled hard in every corner to be first to the puck and were able to again overtake Cambridge on the same score of 3-2.
This set the stage for the semi-finals to take place Saturday night. The Huskies would again face Stoney Creek. This match-up proved much the same for Stoney Creek, though they were able to beat the goalie for one more on the board, finishing with a final score of 8-2.
The championship game was now set, the Huskies would again face the Orleans Blues, Sunday morning at 11:30am. The game was fast paced and the Huskies needed to adapt after a lack luster game against the Warriors the night before. Orleans got two goals and the Huskies quickly knew they were going to need to battle harder for this game. The team regrouped and answered with two of their own goals to finish the game tied.
This is where things got interesting! The Ace Bailey has, shall we call it, a very unique sudden death overtime format! The teams are tasked with not a standard overtime period of five minutes, but several one minute segments that pit varying numbers of players against each other. The first was two, one-minute 3 on 3 segments. The Huskies easily dominated these, firing multiple shots on net but not being able to capitalize. The next step, two one-minute segments, 1 on 1. Again the Huskies had Orleans on their heals, getting multiple shots off at the stellar Orleans goalie. The exhaustion began to set in and it was obvious on both sides. The next round, sudden death penalty shots. One round, down, no goals, two rounds down, no goals, three rounds down and Orleans ends it with a top corner goal, beauty by any standards. And thus the tournament comes to an end, helmets and gloves everywhere, medals handed out, the boys leave with their heads held high, knowing they came so close to back to back titles and have everything to be proud of.
This team has proved nothing short of exceptional thus far. These boys joined together this season, after spending multiple seasons being on teams that were at the best of times adversaries and at the worst, die hard on-ice opponents. This wasn't a wash in of lines, the coaching staff worked thoughtfully and with intent to blend lines of players that watching now, you'd have no idea hadn't been playing together for years gone by. Nothing but pride on behalf of the Coaching staff, the parents and the fans, you Hamilton Huskies Minor Bantam White make us all so proud.