Jan 12, 2015 | John Fullerton | 1036 views
Hawks win the Gretzky
The Minor Bantam MD Hawks have done it again, bringing home the Gold from the Wayne Gretzky International tournament in Brantford over the Christmas holidays. This is the Hawks' third tournament win in what is turning into a banner season.
The Hawks played 6 games, winning 5 of them - the last one in dramatic fashion.
The round robin portion of the tourney saw the Hawks defeat the Ancaster Avalanche 4 to 3, the Guelph Gryphons 3 to 2 and the Brantford Saints 7 to 4. Hawks scorers were Christian Ferraro (5), Brandon Gawel (3), Josh Loewen (2), Alex Verbeem (2), Adam Tunnicliffe and Nicholas Taylor.
In the play-off round the Hawks took on their league rivals, the Hamilton Huskies and responded with perhaps their best performance of the season, a resounding 4 to 1 victory. The Hawks totally dominated this game with Taylor getting the opening goal after some hard work by Alex Fullerton and Verbeem. Gawel, Anthony Russo and Jalen Wegener picked up the other Hawk goals. Pierce Waigh was stellar between the pipes, calmly turning away the Huskie attack.
The Hawks defence of Chris Skilton, Joe Lemieux, Trent Wheeler, Liam Turchin and Russo were their usual steady selves, pushing the opposition to the outside all tournament long.
The finals pitted the Hawks against the TNT Tornadoes and the Hawks found themselves on the short-end of a 2-0 deficit after a period and a half. On the Tornadoes second goal, the brave Brodie Merritt was run over in his crease for the third time this game and had to leave the game with head injuries. The Hawks attack seemed to rally from this indignity and picked up the pace with considerable aplomb.
Loewen let go a one-timer slapshot on a feed from Ferraro to put the Hawks on the board. Then early in the third period, Jace Smith picked up a long feed at the Tornado blue-line and danced in to beat the prone Tornado goalie. With six minutes to go, Verbeem scored a beauty by powering to the net. With a 1:20 remaining and the Hawks short-a-man, the Tornadoes decided to pull their goalie and go 6 on 4. Russo found a loose puck on his stick in the Hawks zone and calmly fired it to the end of the ice - dead center, to seal the 28th Hawks victory of the year. Smith added a final empty netter and the Minor Bantam MD Hawks were declared Wayne Gretzky Champions.