Jan 10, 2016 | Ryan Stewart | 463 views
International Silver Stick Recap
Our great team spent a fantastic 3 nights in Niagara Falls participating in the International Silver Stick tournament this weekend. What an amazing road trip/tournament for our young players to experience! This is the 2nd year a local league division has been offered at this primarily AE tournament consisting of over 1200 hockey players/coaches.......
Atom Red was fortunate enough to secure a spot and play teams from near and far.
Our first game was bright and early at 7:00am on Friday morning at the beautiful Vale Health and Wellness Center in Port Colbourne. The kids were pumped and we started off with a bang and beat the Pelham Panthers by a score of 10-0 in the opening game. The team looked sharp and we knew things would get much more difficult in game 2 later that morning.
The 2nd game saw us facing off with a strong team from Littleton Colorado called the Littleton Hawks. These guys were good! We were facing a very good skating team with lots of talent to put the puck in our net. Ben was sure to be facing lots of rubber in this contest. After three hard fought periods with lots of effort on both benches Littleton took the win with a score of 7-3. They played hard and deserved the win after travelling so far, congrats Littleton on the great game.
Game 3 was a must win for us to get in to the A pool semi-finals. If we lose we would definitely be placed in the B pool which was not what we had in mind. We faced the Belmont Rangers who had some good skaters and shooters so we needed to be on our toes. Playing at the Jack Gatecliff Arena in St Catherines, the first half of the game saw quite of bit time spent in our zone. Ben was playing the game of his life in our net so Belmont was starting to get discouraged and took a few penalties. We managed to score 3 unanswered goals in the first and second periods making it 3-0 going into the third. Coach Ryan made the comment on the bench near the end of the 2nd period that "this game should be 5-3 in Belmont's favour right now but Ben is standing on his head". I agreed and must admit I was a very proud dad at that moment! The third period saw some more nice saves by Ben and we were playing much better and continued our scoring. Belmont seemed to give up after our 5th goal and the game ended with a 7-0 victory giving us our shot in the A pool semi-finals.
Game 4 was sure to be another tough battle with a strong team held at the Seymour Hanna Sportsplex in St Catherines. The winner of this game would advance to play on Sunday morning for a shot at the Championship. We came out hard against the Kemptville Panthers who I believe is from the Ottawa area. Not long after the opening face off we realized this team was going to play rough. The first period saw lots of end to end action and just 2 penalites to our opponent. Our kids were getting battered and bruised by the agressive play but the refs fell short on taking control and things progressed. The score was 0-0 after the first but some of our kids were being hurt on the ice and starting to get thrown off their game. Kemptville opened the scoring after 10 minutes of play in the 2nd period. We were hurting and tempers were flaring at the refs lack of control over this rough play, concern was mounting about the possibility of someone getting hurt but we pressed on. After 2 minutes and 10 seconds in the 3rd Brett Fair scored to tie the game at 1 each. Kemptville answered back with 2 goals later in the 3rd making it 3-1. Coach Ryan pulled Ben for the extra attacker with about a minute and a half left but we couldn't narrow the gap. Unfortunately the game plan of rough agressive play seemed to work for Kemptville in this game. Too bad our kids had to play in a game they were almost afraid to go on the ice.
We leave the ice and arena very proud of our performance in the tournament and take solice in the fact that we would be able to sleep in on Sunday morning and no curfew was required on Saturday night :-).
Road tournaments are meant to be lots of fun and provide time for our team to come together, the kids can make new friends and experience something positive that they will remember for a long time. The time we spent together this weekend fits this bill perfectly! The memories of great hockey with all of its highs and lows, the fun times in the hotel pool, watching amazing belly flops by one of the worlds best belly floppers, receiving the signed Brandon Prust hockey cards from the Prust family (Thanks Kevin! The kids loved them!). Not to mention getting together with great people and all the other stuff that comes with a successfull road tournament.
I think Dillon Lynch summed it up best when he asked me in the dressing room after the final game with tears in his eyes. "Is our hockey season over?" When I answered "No, we have lots of hockey left, only the tournament is over, not the whole season" his face lit up with a big smile......that's what it's all about folks!
Coach Pat