Participating in our first Tournament of the Spring Season; The Nike Bauer Pro Hockey Challenge in Toronto, ON;
our 99 Ice Sharks played 4 hard fought games against a high level of competition made up of players from all over North America. This tournament is regarded and recognized as one of the top Spring Tournaments offered to AAA level players and organizations. Our record of 1-3 during the tournament did not give a good representation of the excellent play our team provided throughout this fun weekend of excellent hockey. The coaching staff was very pleased with, and encouraged by, the strong effort put forth by the team – great work Ice Sharks!
In our first game vs. Pro Hockey CAN/AM we out played & out worked our opposition for the majority of the game, which led to us to out shooting them 35-15. However, with a mixture of strong goaltending and some bad luck around their net, we lost 3-2. In our second game, we showed that even though we didn’t get rewarded for our excellent effort in game 1, we would continue to work and play hard, peppering Regional Express’s goalkeeping for a shot total over 40. This continued strong play, catapulted us to a well deserved victory over Regional Express Blue, by the score of 5-2.
Saturday morning came, which meant a battle with Pro-Tips. This game was a story which included 2 different Ice Shark teams……unfortunately, by the time we found the team that played on Friday, we were in trouble on the scoreboard. Although we lost 9-5, the team showed some “jam” and strong determination to battle back, but in the end it wasn’t enough. We gained some valuable experience from this game, which will prove positive in the games to come. In our final game vs. The Bad Boyz from Toronto, we battled hard and played well, to see the score tied 2-2 with less than a minute left. Due to the fact we needed to win this game to have any chance to play on Sunday, we decided to pull our goalie and go for the win! Unfortunately, we lost 3-2 ending our journey for the weekend.
Congrats to all of our players for competing hard all weekend you should be proud. We had fun, we got our first victory of the season and we now look forward to a good practice Thursday night followed by our participation in the Regional Express Tournament this weekend, beginning on Friday morning. GO Ice Sharks GO!
Submitted: Jason Baier, Head Coach