Nov 25, 2013 | Mike Dougan | 1826 views
A Championship Runner-Up in Embro Tournament
The Atom Red LL team travelled to Embro this weekend for a
one day tournament coming off a stretch of 4 games that saw the team play their
best hockey of the season to date.
Although we were going to be shorthanded with only 9 skaters making the trip, the coaching staff was excited about the way the team is coming together. As if this wasn’t enough adversity to deal with, Mother Nature decided to deal the team another one by offering up the first snow storm of the season in the exact geographical region where the tournament was taking place, resulting in a 60 car pile-up on the 401 that the Tichenoffs got stuck behind and were unable to make the first game, meaning we only had 8 skaters. The roads were so bad that Adam could have put his full gear on and skated to the arena, but seeing how Herb, Jim and the Johnsons got lost on their way there, we didn’t like Adams chances of finding the arena on his own. Even 8 skaters couldn’t slow down Atom Red when facing a strong team from Burford, as Liam decided that he would bring his goaltending to the next level and record his first shutout of the year. This was helped by solid D from Jaden, Colton and Matthew as they allowed only 4 shots against. The Predators first goal by Willie was a sweet one-timer from a behind the net pass from Heyden. The second goal was a breakaway from Curtis that went off the post, then hit the goalies back (at which point Curtis put his hands up to celebrate), then the puck slowly rolled down the goalies back and into the net. The scoring was capped off by a drive to the net by Heyden and Taylor, with Taylor burying the rebound. Final score was 3 to 0 with game MVP honors going to Heyden.
The second game saw a fresh Adam Tichenoff added to the line-up and he didn’t disappoint, scoring 2 beauty goals and skating away with a well deserved game MVP award. A hat trick from Heyden and solid defensive play from Ashton in the neutral zone helped seal the deal and give the Predators a narrow 5 to 4 victory over a strong Embro team. Although the pressure being applied from the Embro team late in the game was high, it wasn’t as high as the blood pressure of many of the Predators fan in the crowd, especially Herb. It was at this time that Heyden decided to see if he could give Herb a heart attack, so he decided that even though he was on a clear cut breakaway with the Embro goalie pulled, he wouldn’t put the puck in the net, just to keep the game interesting. This proved to not matter as the Preds hung on for the win.
This put Atom LL Red in the A Championship game against a team from Belmont that hadn’t lost a game all season, which proved to be too much for us to handle. The lone Preds goal by Heyden was not enough as Belmont handed a tired Predators team a 6 to 1 loss. Game MVP honors went to Jaden Johnson whose solid D kept the score from being a lot worse, and whose overall play in the tournament was one of the reasons the team made it to the Championship Game.
Great work team, and let’s see if we can keep this solid play going for the rest of the season.