Jan 18, 2015 | Albert Ross | 740 views
Midget LL3s Take 3rd Place In Bradford
The
Wilhelm Financial Midget Huskies LL3 took a break from regular season play and
travelled to take part in the Bradford Blue and Gold Tournament in a quest for
more hardware. The Dogs faced their first opponent, the Lefroy Icebreakers, at
2PM in Alliston with great anticipation.
Unfortunately, things did not go well for the Pack and they had to accept a humbling 6 – 0 loss to a very good team. The boys were down, but not out and resolved to do better later that afternoon in Thornton where they faced off against the Bradford Bulldogs. Cam Gingerich notched the first goal of the tournament for his team on tap-in feed from Nathan Gerber early in the first frame and the Dogs never looked back after that. The play was rough and fast with both teams taking penalties and getting chances. Net-minder Liam Saunders was challenged repeatedly as the Huskies went to the penalty kill but he stymied the opposition and bought time for his team to recover. The opportunity presented itself early in the second when the Huskies went to the power-play when Bradford took a cross-checking infraction. Brandon Wagler, working hard down low, fed Colin Shannon who raced to the slot and beat the goalie on the backhand. The Dogs were firing on all cylinders now and their opponent was becoming rattled, allowing even more scoring chances to occur. Stepping up the physical play for his team was Canden Addley who took no prisoners in the body-checking category and set the tone for a rough and tumble third period. The finisher came in spectacular style when Gerber was tripped up as he raced to the net on a breakaway, prompting a penalty-shot call from the official. He brushed himself off, skated in and beat the Bradford net-minder on the glove side to secure the 3 – 0 shutout win. With a win and a loss, the Dogs knew they had to win on Saturday Jan 17 when they faced the Collingwood Blackhawks in Innisfil. The game was a sparring match for much of the first frame but that ended when Shannon executed a perfect break-out to Addley who was racing up ice. Addley then back-passed to Ross who made no mistake on the play and buried the disk to open the scoring. Play had hardly resumed when the Huskies collected their next goal. Wagler was winning puck battles along the boards with the recipient being Nathan Gerber who in turn found Andrew Just open in the slot. Just quickly made it a two-goal game and set the tone for the second period. More chances followed with Owen Houle, Gingerich and Addley all driving the Blackhawk net. It looked like Collingwood would recover when they went to the power-play but the wind was taken out of that sail when the tag-team defense combination of Shannon and Dylan Hempey came up golden on a 2 on 1 short-handed rush. The goalie misread the play and Hempey was happy to give his team a 3 – 0 lead. Confidence was high going into the third but another penalty levied against the Pack allowed the Blackhawks to capitalize early on the power-play. Play had hardly resumed when Collingwood was awarded another goal on a controversial call in which witnesses said the puck never crossed the goal line. Smelling blood, the opposition pulled out the stops and eventually pulled their goalie as the clock wound down. Wyatt Whitby had to be sharp in net, making 2 key saves at the end to give his team the 3 – 2 win. The victory gave the Huskies 4 points in the round robin tying them with the Thornton Tigers who had yet to play their third game. In the end, it came down to goal differential calculation to decide which team would go to the finals. The Tiger’s third game was a close 2 – 1 loss to Lefroy, but their GF/GA numbers were better than the Huskies and thus New Hamburg had to accept a third place finish in the tournament. They hope to learn from the experience as they complete regular season in preparation for post-season action in the coming weeks.