A great weekend for the Novice Gold team reaching the final at the prestigious Preston International Hockey Tournament!
The Novice Gold team came together this past weekend for some great hockey at the Preston tournament. The tournament had 14 teams in the Novice A division representing some of the finest teams at this level from across Ontario.
The round robin had the Novice Gold open with the Garden City Falcons. The team from St. Catherines was no match for Waterloo seeing our boys take the opener 13 - 1. The second game Friday saw the Lorne Park Ojibwa with stellar goaltending hold Waterloo off ending in a 2-2 tie despite our boys out shooting the Ojibwa 24 - 5.
Early Saturday action had Waterloo facing another unknown team in the Markham Waxers. Waterloo Wolves waxed the Waxers winning wonderfully 4 - 0. With the big win over Markham in the confined Duncan Macintosh arena (can dressing rooms be any smaller!), Waterloo Novice Gold finished 2nd overall of the 14 teams. A great achievement for the round robin.
Quarter-final play saw Novice Gold against Alliance rival Brantford. A chippy game with some rough plays. Waterloo prevailed out playing Brantford 6-3 at the historic Galt Arena. A great place to watch hockey.
With the win over Brantford, up next were the Shamrocks of Hespeler sporting a 37-10-3 record. A strong well coached team was a great match up at the Sportsworld Twin Pad. A sold out crowd saw these 2 fine teams play their 3rd game on Saturday at 7:00PM. A long day for these 8 year old boys!
Hespeler had 2-0, 3-2 leads with Waterloo clawing back to tie the game each time.
Hespeler once again showing their will took a 5-3 lead in the 3rd. The coaching staff and the boys did not give up being down 5-3. Putting the pressure on Hespeler, Waterloo kept the play in the Hespeler end eventually scoring the 4th goal. It was now 5-4 Hespeler with 5 minutes to go. Incredible pressure by Novice Gold with end to end rushes lead to Waterloo tying the score at 5 - 5 with 50 seconds left in the third.
On to overtime! Our first experience with 4 on 4 overtime hockey. This did not deter our boys. Again, Waterloo pressure overwhelmed the Shamrocks. Waterloo scored 2 minutes into OT winning 6-5. On to the finals!
Waiting for Waterloo in the finals were the Stratford Warriors with there 30-11-5 overall record. Stratford rolled to the championship game outscoring their opponents 40-6. From the opening face off, our boys were up against a fine skating and well coached team. Stratford got off to an early first period lead and kept the pressure on Novice Gold. Stratford took the championship 5-0 with our boys holding the Warriors scoreless the last half of the game.
A great weekend for the Novice Gold team. Congratulations to a super group of 8 year old boys and coaching staff!
See you at the rink!
