Day 2 of the skills competition is complete, and we have a
tie at the top … Team 1 and Team 4 each ended with 8 points for first place, while Team 2 and Team 3 each ended with 5 points. A job
well done by everyone, and I know the boys had a lot of fun doing it.
On the second day of the competition (Saturday and Sunday) we had the final 4 of the 8 events: Fastest skater, Puck Control, Accurate Passing, and 5 puck (team event). All events were timed, allowing us to compare across the two groups.
In the Fastest skater event on Saturday, it was Jack who mastered the cross-overs on the ends, while Adam pulled off the win on Sunday. Adam’s overall time of 14.09 seconds was noticeably better than then next fastest time, as he zoomed around in McDavid fashion to capture the overall title. Second and Third overall’s came from Sunday’s group with Josh and Kaden respectively putting up a 14.51 and 14.76 time. Honorable mentions on Saturday belong to the speed demons Ethan (14.86) and three others (Ryan, Keenan, Justin) with EXACTLY the same time of 14.91, I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it. Team 1 earned a point with Jack’s Saturday victory, while Team 3 earned two from Adams Sunday and overall performance.
Puck control consisted of complex stickhandling, cone work, and soft hands and was a timed event. On Sunday, Altay demonstrated his Kane-like control with a time of 18.94 seconds which was the only time under 20 seconds and frankly he put all the forwards to shame, while on Saturday it was the beginning of the Liam show as he captured the title with a time of 21.34 seconds. Team 4 earned 2 points while Team 2 earned a point from these two dominating performances. Connor, Connor, Connor pulled off a 27.53 second performance which was better than 9 of our skaters (oh dear) as he continued to display his overall athleticism. Honorable mentions in this event go to second and third place Ryan (22.14) and James (27.12) on Saturday and Caleb (23.27) and Logan (25.81) on Sunday. The highlight for me was a performance that was likely the most dominating performance for 90% of the event by Khristian 15 seconds in, on pace for a clear win UNTIL losing control on the last obstacle and then failing to hit the wide open net 4 times on route to a time over 35 seconds. Sorry buddy, couldn’t resist.
The next event was the Liam event, oops I mean the Passing Accuracy event. Liam pulled of an absolutely flawless performance completing the 4 passing stations perfectly (4 for 4) on route to a completion time of 12.11 seconds which I would challenge a pro player to match. The time of the day for Sunday was Khristian with 16.71 seconds with also a near perfect performance. Well done to these two gentlemen who most definitely topped me with my “demonstration” of the event. Team 2 earned 2 points for Liam’s performance while Team 4 earned one with Khristian’s determined effort. Second place on Saturday belonged to Callum (17.37) and third to Justin (22.57), while Sunday’s placements included Caleb (17.11) at second and Altay (17.79) at third.
The final event, which most definitely matter in the overall standings, was the 5 puck event (first to score fives times on opposing goalie in shootout form) which was a timed event, and belonged to Team 1 on Saturday and Team 4 on Sunday, but with Team 1 completing the task in less time overall (at 4 minutes and 17 seconds) this earned them an extra point and a tie in the FINAL standings for first. Team 4 let this one slip, as they completed 4 of the 5 pucks in just over 3 minutes, but then the wall of Nate (and his friends post and cross-bar) shut them down and it took more than 2 minutes to score the final goal. Kaden and Khristian alone had 3 or 4 attempts where they beat Nate BUT could not solved the post-problem. Watching these kids perform on breakaways becomes more and more exciting each year as they perfect deking, backhanders, spinaramas, and the Myles special of luring a poke check only to completely undress with a slow deke (impressive).
We finished Day 2 with a friendly and tame game of torpedo. Well not so tame, but still safe ... mostly. When else do father’s get to fire tennis balls at their kids and their friends?
Boys, what a fun few days of competition. Thanks for the great year, despite the weirdness of it. I wish everyone an active and safe spring and summer and see you on the ice in September.
Coach Dave