Lucas Punkari
It was a game that defied description—and left both coaches scratching their heads.
But when the dust settled at the Ice For Kids Arena here Sunday afternoon, it was the host Fort Frances Canadians who captured the 48th-annual local Bantam ‘AA’ tournament crown after a dramatic 10-9 victory over Seine River Snipers of Ste. Anne, Man. in the final.
“This game was just mind-boggling as who would of thought that there would have been a 10-9 game after the rest of the tournament had been full of close games,” Canadians’ head coach Mike Allison said afterwards.
“It was a great game where the refs let the kids play, and it was one of those games where whoever had the puck last was able to win it,” he added.
The first period alone saw as many goals as some teams score in an entire game, with the Snipers grabbing a 4-3 lead.
“That is something you don’t see very often, and certainly not in a final,” admitted Snipers’ head coach Chris MacKinnon.
“You expect things to be a little bit tighter defensively, but it was a little bit loose back there for both teams and that results in a lot pucks going into the net,” he noted.
“And that made things pretty exciting.”
After both teams traded goals early in the second, the Snipers jumped out to a two-goal cushion near the halfway point of the frame. That’s when the Canadians called a time-out in order to regroup.
“The players themselves actually talked things over,” Allison noted.
“During that time-out, they talked about settling themselves down out there as it seemed like they were getting a little bit rattled—and it paid off.”
Around that same time, the Canadians also made a change between the pipes, pulling starter Parker Orchard in favour of Fayth Chambers, who had joined the team prior to its tournament win in Dryden earlier this month.
“Parker had pulled a leg muscle in the semi-finals [a 4-3 win over the Southwest Jets of Winnipeg] on a penalty shot, but he felt that he would be able to play in the final,” Allison explained.
“But as the game went on, we found that he just wasn’t the Parker that he had been during the earlier part of the tournament.
“So we elected to go with Fayth for the last little bit of the game, and she came up big for us,” he lauded.
Whether it was the time-out discussion or the goalie change, the Canadians had the momentum for the rest of the period, with Evan Krassey scoring a power-play marker in the dying seconds to give the hosts an 8-7 lead.
Both teams traded goals once again during the third period before Hunter Koles beat Snipers’ goalie Mason Swerdyliak five-hole to notch what proved to be the game-winning marker.
“We had contributions from every single line, but the line of Hunter Koles, Brett Hahkala, and Scott Williams really stepped up the most,” Allison said.
“They really helped to turn the game around with some shifts where they bottled up their top line, and then Hunter was able to get that game-winning goal off of the wing,” he added.
As the clock wound down, Snipers’ captain Boedey Vaeth had a number of chances to score not only the game-tying marker but his sixth of the afternoon.
Chambers was able to turn aside every shot that came her way in the final five minutes, however, as the Canadians hung on to capture their home tourney.
“I’ve seen so many games where in the last five seconds the other team would score and tie it up,” Chambers remarked.
“So in the final seconds, I was yelling at my teammates and screaming so loud that I didn’t actually hear the buzzer go off.
“It was pretty exciting when I realized that we had won,” she smiled.
The Canadians were led on offence by Graeme Kitt, who netted four goals in the final.
Koles and Krassey each scored a pair of goals, with Tyler VanUden and Noah Loveday adding singles.
With tournament wins in both Dryden and Fort Frances now in the books, the Canadians will look to continue their winning ways in Bemidji, Mn. next weekend, where they’ll go up against a number of strong Minnesota teams.
“The teams there have more speed, and there is a six-month [age] difference between those Minnesota players, so that will be an all-new challenge for us,” Allison warned.
In other tournament action Sunday, the Winnipeg East Railcats blanked the Kenora Thistles 3-0 in the ‘B’ final.
The South End Rangers (Thunder Bay), meanwhile, captured the ‘C’ crown with a 4-3 win over the Southeast Blizzard (Steinbach).
