Nov 06, 2018 | Tim Robb | 1170 views
London Green and White Tournament Champs!!
The Minor Peewee AA Wolves win the London Green and White Tournament in dramatic fashion. With a 1-0-3 record in round robin play, the team had their fingers crossed during the late Saturday games. Needing some help from St Thomas, York Toros and West Hill, after doing our own part in winning our final round robin game.
With the Wolves on the drive home to Waterloo the first needed win news rang across the team chat. The St Thomas Stars team defeated the defending OHF Champion and last years winner of the Green and White Tournament Peterborough Petes. It was now in the hands of West Hill.
With the Wolves now at home for the night, all we could do was wait for the final scores to be posted. Refresh after refresh we waited on the edge of our seats. Finally the news came pouring in, West Hill won and the Wolves were in!
With the eighth and final seed the Wolves were off to face a familiar foe in the St Thomas Stars. The Wolves having bested the Stars on their last meeting during regular season play, the boys were ready. As it turns out the Stars were also up for this game. After a full 40 min of back and forth hockey that saw the lead change and twice the Wolves were down by two goals. With St Thomas leading by one and under a min left on the clock, the Wolves pulled the goalie and found the back of the net to tie the game at 4. In the ten min overtime of 4 on 4 both teams had chances but neither could finish the game. With the teams deadlocked at 4 goals each we were off to a shootout. In the shootout both teams selected their three shooters and we were off. Shooter 1 for both teams were bested by the goalies. Shooter 2 saw the Wolves find the mesh and St Thomas fail to score. With the Wolves leading 1-0 it all came down to the 3rd and final shooter. All eyes on the Waterloo goalie as he stood tall and sealed the victory. The Wolves win and were off to the semi-finals.
The semi-finals saw the Wolves face the Goulding Park Rangers. The first period saw the Wolves down 2 times by a goal until the dying seconds when we tied the game with 7 sec on the clock. With the game tied at 2 a side the Wolves took their first lead of the game mid way into the 2nd to have it evened up to 3 shortly after. The third period would find the Wolves taking a commanding lead potting 3 with 2 of the 3 goals 15 seconds apart. The Rangers were not done. Finding the net 1 more time to pull within 2. The Wolves answered back quickly, restoring the 3 goal lead then extending to 4 a short min later to take the game 8-4.
The final would see the Wolves faceoff against the number 3 ranked Carington Toros who defeated the host and number 2 rated London Knights White team in their semi-final game 4-3.
Clarington opened the scoring to take a early lead mid way into the 1st period. Once again the wolves answered back to tie the game at 1 less than a min later. Period 2 again had the Carington team take back the lead late in the period. The Wolves once again found the back of the net shortly after to tie the game up at 2. The 3rd period started with a lot of tight checking and few chances at either end. Mid way into the 3rd the Wolves finally took the lead in the game for the first time. With Clarington on their heels the Wolves grabbed another to increase to a 2 goal lead with almost 7 min remaining in the game. The remainder of the period the Wolves shut down every scoring chance and ground out the victory against a very strong team.
Great weekend overall for the Wolves having a record of 4-0-3 in the tournament. Also showing a lot of resiliency having come from behind in all but 1 of 7 games to either force the tie or take the win.