KCs win PeeWee tourney in Winnipeg

Despite having several players battling the ’flu bug, the local KCs fought back to down the Steinbach Millers 5-3 on Sunday to win a ‘AA’ PeeWee tournament in Winnipeg.
Trailing 2-0 after the first period, the KCs staged a furious comeback, scoring three unanswered goals in the second.
Mike Niskala, assisted by Jamie Davis and Tanner Kaemingh, got things going early in the period, then Tyler Barker tallied a pair in a 2:05 span late in the frame to give the KCs the lead for good.
They stretched their lead to 4-2 at 5:09 of the third on a goal by Scott Bridgeman (assisted by Barker and Jared Catholique-Bruyere).
Steinbach’s Jeff Fung netted his second of the game with 11:10 to play in regulation time to pull his team back within one but Davis iced the game with an empty-netter with just 17 seconds left.
Barker was named the game’s first star while KC goalie Jason Green was the third star. Fung earned second-star honours.
Sunday’s win avenged an earlier 4-3 loss to the Millers during pool play Friday afternoon.
“It was one helluva hockey game,” said KC head coach Dale Kaemingh, adding the team got a big boost from the large contingent of fans who made the trip to Winnipeg.
“The kids played excellent,” he noted. “At these types of tournaments, all the teams are top calibre–the kids deserved it.”
Capturing the tourney crown was all the more gutsy considering several players were feeling the effects of the ’flu, and the team was without captain Andrew George, who missed the last couple of games.
That forced the KCs to do some “creative line juggling,” said Kaemingh, but they hardly missed a beat all weekend.
“They had something in their hearts and they didn’t quit,” said Kaemingh. “There are so many tournaments where you don’t get the bounces but they [bore] down. They just stormed back.”
Stormed back indeed.
Earlier Sunday, the KCs scored twice in a 22-second span in the final 1:15 to beat the host Assiniboine Park Rangers 7-6 in a wild semi-final showdown.
After Steve Landreville scored his fourth goal of the game to give the Rangers a 6-5 lead with just 1:39 to play, Catholique-Bruyere tied the game 24 seconds later.
Then Davis was the hero when he scored the eventual game-winner with just 53 seconds left.
“It was unbelievable that [Rangers] game,” said Kaemingh. “It went right down to the wire.”
Jeremy Bell had a big game against the Rangers, scoring a hat trick and adding an assist. Niskala and Danny MacIntyre also tallied in that one while Barker added a pair of assists.
They had advanced to the semi-finals after edging the highly-touted Edmonton North Stars 2-1.
“We’re not known for putting a lot of pucks into the net. We seem to play to the calibre of the teams that we are playing against,” noted Kaemingh.
The KCs had jumped out to a 2-0 second-period lead on goals by Davis and Kaemingh. The North Stars sliced into that lead five minutes into the third when Ryan MacDonald tallied but the KCs held on to win the tight-checking affair.
The KCs opened action Friday morning with a 4-1 win over the Grand Forks Kings. Bryan Chambers led the way with two goals while Andrew Mueller and Niskala netted singles.
They suffered their lone loss of the tourney that afternoon against Steinbach. Kevin Reimer scored his second of the game for the Millers with just 1:26 to play for the narrow 4-3 win.
George, Bridgeman, and Kaemingh scored in a losing cause.
“The first game against Steinbach, we played pretty good but we ran into a hot goaltender and we hit the goalpost,” recalled Kaemingh.
The tourney win capped off a sensational season for the KCs, who finished with a 69-13-3 record.
Besides winning their own tournament here, the KCs also came second at a tourney in Sioux Lookout (losing the final in overtime) and finished fourth at ones in Kenora, Thunder Bay, and Fargo.
Only once did they fail to get out of their pool at a tournament.
Meanwhile, the KCs also did well in the skills competition in Winnipeg, placing second in the speed skating drill while posting the top time in the preliminaries.
Davis lost out in the final of the shootout portion while Mark Buist earned third place among the goalies.