Sure, there was plenty of local bravado from the home town crew as the Snowflake Challenge Girls Hockey Tournament returned this past weekend following a two-year hiatus.
But rest assured that there was no lack of pushback from the out of town contingent as championship banners made their way near and far (as in “half a day away” far) Sunday afternoon in Sudbury.
Actually, the doling out of the hardware got a bit of a head start courtesy of the U18 A Division.
With the Sudbury Lady Wolves and the Thunder Bay Queens set to contest the final round robin game late Saturday night and the same two teams already guaranteed to advance to the gold medal game on Sunday, agreement was reached to allow the north westerners to hit the road a little early.
Despite deciding just hours earlier that everything would be on the line on a Sudbury Saturday night, the Lady Wolves managed to build up enough momentum from start to finish, receiving goals from Kaileigh Johnson, Erika MacNeill and Maya Flores and a shutout performance from Stevie Levesque, blanking T Bay 3-0 in the process.
“In the change room before the game, the energy was a little strange,” acknowledged Sudbury defenceman Amelia Bois. “Everyone was a little freaked out; no one had that game mentality. But then we came out and we gave it to them. We showed them.”
Yes, there is something about playing for a title in the city you represent that simply feels a little different than any of the multitude of other championship affairs these girls have contested over the years in all corners of the province.
“When you come to Sudbury to play is, we’re going to win,” stressed Bois. “It’s our home barn. We got it.”
While the pre-game mood may have been a little off, the in-game energy was exactly where it needed to be for the U18 A Lady Wolves, the Central East division leaders with a record of 8-1-2 to date. “The bench has such a positive attitude for us,” said Bois. “When somebody is down, you pick them up. If we’re down a goal, we get it back.”
That kind of resilience was also a key to victory for the Sudbury U18 B Lady Wolves, a crew were within less than three minutes of capturing gold in regulation time when Kallie Hryciw deadlocked the final at 2-2 for the Thunder Bay Fury.
After nothing was solved via five minutes of four on four hockey, it was left to Izzy Courville, the only one of six shooters to find the back of the net in the shootout and Sudbury netminder Ashleigh Beauchamp (three shots faced; three saves) to lift the Lady Wolves to a 3-2 win.
“We made a mistake and that’s okay,” noted Courville, recalling the final moments of the game in which goals by Mya Massimiliano and Peyton Aikia had the locals on the very precipice of victory. “It happens. I just said that we’ve got to keep our heads up. Even if it goes to overtime or a shootout, we’ve got this.”
And much like her Lady Wolves counterpart in the U18 ranks before her, Courville also contends that enjoying moments like this in the comfort of the Gerry McCrory Sports Complex is more than a little special.
“It just feels better in your home town,” said the 15 year old veteran of the shootouts. “These are the first home games for me since two years ago since we played Lower Lakes last year (all home games in Vaughan). It feels like this was meant to be. It feels like home team, home game – we’re supposed to win.”
Sasha Barber will suggest otherwise.
The spirited young forward with the Nipigon Elks had seen her team narrowly miss being eliminated in the semi-finals when Charlie Laberge pulled Mattice even with just 22 seconds to play before Rayleigh Mulligan netted the game winner in overtime, sending the north shore team to the finals with a 3-2 win.
Awaiting were the Sudbury Sharks, a team which had played Nipigon to a back and forth 4-4 draw in a thriller the night before.
The second time around, however, was no contest as Barber buried the hat trick, Avery Haskell and Madison St Onge added one goal each in a 5-0 triumph for a team that would split the trek back home over two days, spending Sunday evening in Sault Ste Marie before continuing for the remaining eight hour voyage on Monday.
“I think we were still hyped up from the overtime win,” noted Barber, a 13 year old grade eight student at George O’Neill Public School in Nipigon. “We came into this game super upbeat.”
While the majority of these girls also play co-ed hockey along the Highway 17 / Highway 11 corridor, the chance to get together as an all-female team is something of a treat for the crew.
“We don’t get out a lot from Thunder Bay or Manitowadge, so it was pretty nice to come all the way here to play hockey,” said Barber. “It really helped having the bus, that ten hour bus ride. We got to know each other a lot better. We had really good encouragement from our team members this weekend.”
In other finals that would go right down to the final buzzer (or beyond), the Wawa Mustangs claimed the U18 house league banner when Lacey Pilon scored her second goal of the game, in overtime, giving the visitors a 3-2 win over the Sudbury Bears.
Lily Sims scored the tournament winning goal just 38 seconds into period number four as the Sault Ste Marie Wildcats edged the Sudbury Lady Wolves 2-1 in the U11B final while the Sault Ste Marie HL Wildcats and the Sudbury Stingrays also went to a shootout, with the Cats eking out a 3-2 win.
Still more drama albeit with no local content as the Hearst Ice Cats and Kanata Rangers remained scoreless all the way through three periods of exciting hockey in the U11 C showdown before Amélie Mercier picked the far corner with time winding down in overtime, leading Hearst past Kanata 1-0.
