This past weekend, our Cambridge Hawks U10/U11 Select team participated in the Barrie House League Select tournament.
Our Hawks were on quite a roll of late, winning their last 5 games by a combined score of 32-4 with three shutouts
The weekend began on Friday morning with an early game versus the St Catharines Kiwanis Stars. Our boys scored two goals in the first period, exchanged goals in the second and pulled away with three unanswered in the third. Jackson led the way with two goals, followed by Nathan, Luke, Tristan and Logan M, while Zayd recorded the victory in net. Jackson was also awarded the player of the game.
Our second game on Friday featured a battle with the Kingston Canadians and our boys struck first just 56 seconds in. That goal was quickly answered by Les Bleu, Blanc and Rouge to end the first tied. Our team scored just over three minutes into the second period, only to be tied just 8 seconds later. Our team was not backing down and scored seven times in the third period, including two power play goals to take a 9-2 win. Calvin had a hat-trick, while Jackson, Ali, Ari, Henry, Brady and Preston each had singles. Blake recorded the victory in goal. Our player of the game was Tristan for his solid play with and without the puck.
Saturday morning, we faced off against the Flamborough Sabres and we jumped out to a quick start scoring three goals in the first period and 1 in the second en route to a 4-0 win. Blake recorded the win and the shutout, while Henry, Luke, Taiden and Tristan each scored. Logan M was our player of the game.
In what was to be our most difficult test of the round-robin, we faced the home team, U11 Barrie Jr Colts. The first period was very close with both teams missing out on glorious scoring opportunities. Late in the first period, with only 6 seconds remaining, Preston scored to give our Hawks the lead. The strong Barrie team quickly responded with a goal only 36 seconds into the second and then again, just seven seconds later for a 2-1 lead. Both teams traded scoring opportunities, but on the powerplay, Henry was able to knock down a puck in front of the net and score with less than five minutes remaining. Our team managed to secure a tie and with that, finish in first place in their division, and guarantee a spot in the semi-finals. Zayd earned the tie in this game and Henry was our player of the game.
At 7:30 Sunday morning, our opponent was the U10 Barrie Jr Colts and again we scored three quick goals in the first period to take control of this game. The quick Jr Colts team scored once in the second and one late in the third, while we answered with two more in the third to secure a spot in the finals. We had two goals from Ali and singles from Taiden, Luke and Nathan, while Ali was our player of the game and Blake got the victory in net.
In the final, we faced a very strong Orono Leafs team and our team found themselves down 1-0 just 1:38 into the game. After a 2 minute minor penalty was assessed to the Leafs team, our boys quickly found the back of the net on the powerplay and that goal was quickly followed by another just seven seconds later. We found ourselves up 2-1 at the end of the first period. There was no scoring in the second period, but just 54 seconds into the third, Orono tied the game. Late in the game, we took a penalty of our own and Orono capitalized with a powerplay goal of their own. We made the decision to pull our goalie and force the hand of the Leafs team but an empty net goal sealed our fate with just 33 seconds remaining. Our goal scorers were Ali and Taiden and Zayd took the loss.
Our team battled hard earning the Silver medal and learned some lessons during this tournament. We finished with only 1 loss, scored a total of 28 goals while giving up only 11 in six games against some good opponents.
We finish out our season April 4th - 7th in the Alliance HL Select Championships being held in Brantford. We have a tough schedule ahead of us, but we are certainly looking forward to the challenge.
