Staff
The odds were against them to stay perfect for an entire season.
Now, the Muskie boys’ hockey team can take a breath and then try to start a new winning streak.
The black-and-gold were beaten 5-2 by the Garden Valley Collegiate Zodiacs (Winkler, Man.) in the ‘B’ final of the 19th-annual Genesis Hospitality tournament in Brandon, Man. (the goal scorers were not available by press time).
Fort High had opened the tournament Thursday with a 6-0 whitewash of the Sanford Collegiate Sabres to run its record (including pre-season and tournaments) to a stellar 18-0.
But in a strange scheduling quirk, the victory also meant the Muskies were idle on Friday and didn’t see the ice again until Saturday afternoon against the Westwood Warriors (Winnipeg).
The layoff hurt more than helped, however, as the Warriors used five different goal scorers to earn a 5-3 win and hand the Muskies their first defeat of the season.
Cam Fehr, Bobby Asham, Kyle Little, Brenden Luschinski, and Josh Kazuk all hit the twine for the Warriors while Donovan Cousineau tried to lift his entire team on his shoulders in a comeback attempt, racking up a natural hat trick in the third period to make a game of it.
But it was too little, too late for the black-and-gold, who also got a two-assist performance from Brendan Cawston.
The Muskies handled their demotion to the ‘B’ side of the tournament not by hanging their heads, but by reloading their sticks with a stockpile of ammunition—ready to unload on their next unwitting victim.
That turned out to be the Carman Collegiate Cougars, who were thoroughly overmatched in a 6-0 loss to Fort High in the ‘B’ semi-finals (the goal scorers weren’t available by press time).
Erasing the Cougars pencilled the Muskies into the ‘B’ final against the Zodiacs. But the Winkler crew lived up to its reputation as one of Manitoba’s consistently strong teams and the 2006 provincial ‘AAAA’ champion proved too tough a test for Fort High.
Winnipeg’s Vincent Massey Trojans prevented Crocus Plains from becoming the first Brandon-based squad to win the ‘A’ title at the tourney, beating the Plainsmen 5-2 in the gold-medal game.
Fort High will look to continue its NorWOSSA mastery this season with a game Friday against the Kenora Broncos at 7:15 p.m. at the Ice For Kids Arena at 7:15 p.m.
The Muskies are 5-0 in league play and have a lock on first place early in the season—six points ahead of the second-place Broncos (2-1) although Kenora holds two games in hand.
The Dryden Eagles (0-2) and Red Lake Rams (0-4) round out the four-team league.
The black-and-gold then will head up Highway 71 for a rematch with the Broncos next Tuesday (Dec. 15).
Fort High has scored a whopping 40 goals in its first five NorWOSSA matches (an average of eight per game) while only allowing seven (1.4 per game).
Needless to say, Muskie players are all over the top of the NorWOSSA scoring race, with eight snipers in the league’s top 10.
Jamie Kaun leads the way with 13 points (four goals, nine assists), followed closely by Cousineau (six goals, five assists) and Cawston (a league-leading nine goals to go with one assist).
