May 05, 2011 | Greg McNevan | 1655 views
Tykes First Tournament Ends with First Win
The Tykes traveled to St. Mary's for the 1st annual 2004 Southwest Jets Invitational this past weekend, where they enjoyed a fun and rewarding experience. They played in 4 games, and each of them competed in a skills competition.
Our tournament began with a 1-1 tie vs. Excelerate. Both teams worked hard and exchanged chances throughout the game. In this tournament each penalty was a penalty shot, which seen each team awarded 2. Excelerate was 1 for 2, and we were 0 for 2 on our chances.
Next up was Regional Gold. We played a strong first period coming out with a 1-0 lead. Regional came out determined early in the 2nd scoring 3 goals in the first 2:30, putting us down 3-2. Each team would tally 2 more goals in the second period, leaving us down 5-4 going into the 3rd. We tied it at 5, 20 seconds into the 3rd on a penalty shot, but that was as close as we came, as Regional scored 3 in the final 6 mins of the game. We also hit 2 posts and missed on a penalty shot. This game showed us that we could compete with any team in this tournament.
Our 3rd round robin game was against the Southwest Jets. We could never get any momentum going in this one and ended up with a 7-3 loss. The tournament format was similar to Silver Stick, where there was 8 points available per game. 2 per period, and an additional 2 for winning the game. We needed 2 points from Southwest to make the top 4, but came up short. The 3 teams we faced, Regional, Southwest and Excelerate finished the round robin 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively. A tough draw, but playing the best can only make you better.
That put us up against Pro-Tips in the C final game. This was a character building game for our kids. The first period was scoreless. Each team scored 3 in the 2nd, with Pro-tips always scoring the go ahead goal. Our kids battled hard and never gave up. Early in the 3rd Pro-tips went up 4-3, but determined to win this game we scored with 2 minutes to go to force overtime. In overtime this group of kids left it all on the ice, and with 2:04 to go it all paid off. 5-4 OT WIN! These 6 and 7 year olds came off the bench and formed a pile at centre ice like they won the Stanley Cup! That is a moment in hockey they will never forget!