Feb 08, 2016 | bmiller | 831 views
Preds Win Drayton Tournament 'B' Division
The Bruce Peninsula Predators Novice #1 team travelled to Drayton on Sunday, Feb 7th to play in the Tyler Lopers Memorial Novice Local League tournament.
The day was long, and though far away, it turned out to be a great day to take the drive and enjoy some great hockey.
Our first game was at 11am vs the Seaforth Stars and we came out a little tentative at first, but in a few moments the kids were skating well and really started to put some good pressure on the Stars.
Dalton Fries would score 4 times in the first to take us up 4 to 0 after the first.
Seaforth would score twice in the second to make things closer, but Shailan Miller would score early in the third and Gabriel McNair would find the net with the goalie pulled to finish things off at 6 to 2.
Ryan Hickey was solid in net for the Preds taking home the victory.
The second game of the day was at 3pm and after plenty of running around by the kids and some lunch with the parents, we thought it was supposed to be against the New Hamburg Huskies, but a scoring error fooled us and we found out briefly before we played that we would get the Walkerton Capitals #1 team once again.
We knew how good Walkerton was after we played them in the undefeated game of the Paisley tournament in January.
They had not lost a regular season game and only once in tournament or exhibition play this season so far.
We were lucky to force a tie against them in Paisley, but it was Walkerton who would move on then, and things would be the same as we lost 4 to 1 in Drayton.
Ryan Hickey was very busy and played a terrific game in net for us.
Dalton scored our only goal in the third as they led 2 to 0 after the first and 3 to 0 after the 2nd period.
We pulled our goalie, but they unfortunately scored again to close the book on any comeback for sure!
So after some more food, and a lot better rest this time, the kids played in the 'B' division final at 6pm vs the host team, the Drayton Defenders and played a lot more of our style this time, hoping to come home with some hardware, the kids were excited and ready out of the gate.
All though they had some great skaters especially on the backend, our team was ready for anything and played well defensively.
Mason Fortin would get things started on the scoreboard and followed by Dalton Fries putting us up 2 to 0 after the 1st period.
Mason scored again in the 2nd on an offensive faceoff to go up 3 to 0 heading into the 3rd period.
Michael Rouse was solid in net having to make a few key saves late in the last 2 periods.
Shailan Miller would score to go up 4 to 0 early in the third and after Drayton would score twice on back to back breakaways in the last 3 minutes, Dalton would score again for some insurance to walk away with the 5 to 2 victory.
Shailan was exceptional in this game making sure her defence had lots of help stopping the Drayton attack at the blue line, and keeping the shots on Michael limited as possible.
Ashton Boyle and Shiloh McNair both had exceptional moments during the tournament and Lillie Dowd was still on a roll with her great play of late. Awesome work kids!
All in all, a great time had by our kids and their families as we walked away with the 'B' division title.
So proud of all your play kids, you worked hard and got a great reward!
Congratulations!