The most frantic portion of the hockey season is taking place right now with several tournaments taking place across western Canada over the holiday season.
Starting over in B.C. is the Burnaby Christmas Tournament, featuring 16 teams from the province. To nobodies surprise it will be 2 of the top ranked teams in western Canada going head to head as Kamloops will play the BWC in the finals or Gold game if you will, while Cloverdale will meet Seafair in the 3rd place or Bronze game. Kamloops was able to reach the final after losing their first game of the tournament to Cloverdale by a 5-4 score. However, Kamloops was able to shake off the turkey legs with a 9-2 drubbing over Seafair, a 1-1 tie vs. BWC (who they meeet in the final) and then a 10-0 win over Mission to advance to the semi-finals. In the semi's they would have a re-match with Cloverdale and this time they came out victorious with a 6-2 win. BWC had a bit of an easier road with a convicing 7-2 win over Seafair and a 5-0 over Cloverdale. After tieing Kamloops 1-1, they thumped North Delta 12-0 and then did similar to Semiahmoo with a 8-0 win. BWC would then advance to the final with a narrow 3-2 semi-final victory over Seafair.
Coming in to the tournament the 4 top ranked teams all make it to the final 4 as predicted. Should make for some interesting games today. Stay tuned for some more thoughts later.
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Now for a tournament taking place south of the border in Everett at the SJHA Bantam AAA Holiday Classic, the tournament is winding down. This tournament featured teams primarily from Washington State as well as a few teams from B.C. including Surrey, Victoria, Cowichan Valley and Cloverdale AA. Also in the tournament were a couple teams from California.
There were three division, each broken down in to 5 teams. Orange County, California Wave AA and the Surrey Thunder all went 4-0-0 and advanced to the playoff round. In the end, it was the Surrey Thunder defeating the California Wave in the final by a score of 2-1 to capture the tournament title.
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Moving over to Alberta now, there is a tournament taking place in Edmonton called the Edmonton Invitational Tournament of Champions. This tournament features both AA and AAA teams.
The Prince George Bantam Cougars will take on the Leduc Oil Kings in the final, while CAC will take on Scott Pump in the 3rd place game. Prince George was able to reach the final after defeating Scott Pump 4-2 in the semi's, while Leduc beat the Winnipeg Sharks 7-2 to advance. Leduc will be looking for revenge in the final vs. Prince George after Prince George beat them 7-3 in prelim play.
The "AA" final will have the Alaska Northstars vs. the Grand Prairie AA Storm. The Alaska Northstars outscored their oppenents 46-6 in the 4 games en route to the final today.
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And of course today, the GSHL tournament will get underway with 16 teams taking part. I'll try my best to provide updates in between games throughout the tournament and will have a big re-cap in the January 5, 2011 newsletter.
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Finally this morning, there are a few players of note taking part at the Macs Midget AAA tournament in Calgary. For Beardy's, who went 3-1 in the tournament, Braden Oleksyn who has played all year for Beardy's in midget AAA and has averaged a point per game or near that was held pointless in 4 games, while Ryan Pilon and Wyatt Hinson were also AP players called up and were also held pointless.
Also, 96 born Rhett Gardner was a call-up with the Moose Jaw Generals and scored 2 goals in 4 games at the Macs. Pretty impressive.
7 comments:
Everett tournament was great tournament. Surrey scored GWG in finals with 1 minute 30 seconds left. Surrey gave up 6 goals throughout the tournament as did California Wave. Semi finals were Spokane losing to California Wave 6-1 and OCHC losing to Surrey 3-0. Spencer Meyer was tournament MVP and Surrey's goalie earned MVP in Semifinals and finals. Great job
BWC beat Kamloops in a shootout. It would be hard to find two more evenly matched teams. They tied 1-1 during the round robin portion of the tournament and tied 3-3 in the final. Overtime solved nothing and the shootout lasted 13 rounds! Both goalies were outstanding.
oleksyn played with my son in calgary with junior flames i watched the macs all week i have yet to see a 96 born that can play the style he does and compete and EXCEL at this level of the game, good for him give credit were it is due lets not be envious. great job Braden, Pilon is as well a diamond in the rough great for this program to find such talents . Beardys have a great track record for finding and devolping top prospects.if i lived in Sask. i would love my kid to play with this program.
Oleksyn was at best average in the tourney played well he is a hard working two way player and there is no dought he belongs where he is.Pilon was beat many times and looked to be a bit out of his element Pilon ranked way too high though as there were better 96 players watching from the stands
I have watched Oleksyn play a couple of times this season, while he has good skills he has been average at best this season. But he is one of those players that seems to manage to get points whether he is playing well or not. The last game I seen he may have got 3 shifts in the 3rd period. This is an issue for his development, and is something that Beardys is very well known for. The top line plays lots, the 2nd line plays a little and the rest don't play much at all.
Pilon is the best defenseman available for the draft. He can shoot, is tough and mean, big, and is very smart as he sees the ice with amazing vision. His weakest skill has been his skating and it has improved drastically this year.
With that all said Oleksyn will go #1 and Pilon #2.
Once again another silly comment!! Just because they are playing Midget doesnt mean they are the top 2 players in the draft.
That is more than silly I can tell you that in the spring season niether player stood out in the tourneys they were at. Forsberg went #1 last year after watching this year dont you think PG would like to have that pick again and take say Klimchuk.Both will go in first round but 1 and 2 that may be saying alot. Playing Midget in Sask is great for those kids but if they were in another area they would be playing up.
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