Sunday Thoughts/Highlights

All bantam leagues are now underway, so instead of re-capping each game, I'll just run through a few of the highlights from over the weekend.

First off, their is a big tournament going on Chilliwack with most of the top teams from B.C. taking part with the exception of Seafair, who host their own each fall.

In the Chilliwack tournament, it was basically a four team race from the start with Cloverdale clearly the fifth best team their. In the semi's it will be POE vs. Abbotsford and Burnaby vs. Kamloops. Burnaby has outscored thier opponents 35-2 in 5 straight wins. They'll meet Kamloops who scored a whopping 44 goals in 5 games while allowing 12. Kamloops also went without a loss. In the other matchup, POE who went 5-0 and outscored the opposition 30-8 will play Abbotsford who was 5-0 and 36-11. They actually squeaked by Langley 5-3 in the quarters.

In the Seafair tournament, to nobodies surprise, Seafair rolled to a 3-0 record scoring 28 goals. Other teams who took part were Mission, Campbell River and Kent Valley.

In the AMBHL league yesterday, both Reid Duke and Tanner MacMaster continued their early domination of the league. Duke led his Calgary Royals to a 9-5 win scoring twice and assisting on 2 others, while MacMaster answered with 2 goals and added 4 assists, giving him 20 points and a league leading 14 goals which is 5 more than anybody else. Is Tanner going to make a run at Rattie's record? Also of note, Zach Gonek played his first game of the season for St. Albert after serving a suspension, he had 2 assists.

Goalie of note so far in the AMBHL has to be Nolan Kruizenga from Leduc who is 2-1-0 with a .968 save percentage and a 1.00 gaa. J.T. Barlett from league leading Spruce Grove PAC has a .944 save percentage and a 1.33 gaa.

Moving over to Saskatchewan now and the Centre Four Hockey League which got underway this weekend with 4 games. The game of note though saw Prince Albert defeat likely the only team who will give them a run for their money this year, Warman. They beat Warman 5-1. In other action Melfort tied the Battlefords 4-4. Zac Paziuk had a goal and 1 assist for Melfort while Daxon Schmidt led the way for Battlefords with a pair of goals.

A brief look at the Winnipeg Bantam League shows the favorite Winnipeg Hawks at 2-0, they are tied with the Winnipeg Sharks who are also 2-0. A bit surprising is that the Winnipeg Warriors are 0-2 and have only scored 2 goals in 2 games.