Staff
With one period to go, the Fort Frances Atom ‘AA’ Canadians were envisioning a gold-medal celebration.
They got to see one–but it took place at the other end of the ice.
The West End Bruins (Thunder Bay) scored three times in the third period to pull out a 4-3 win over the Canadians in the final of the squad’s home tournament Sunday at the Ice For Kids Arena.
With Bo Gartzke in the box for slashing, Kylen Echum intercepted a clearing attempt at the Canadians’ blueline after an initial stop by goalie Brayton Levesque.
Echum wheeled around and fired a low shot that beat Levesque stick side with 1:56 left in regulation time to cap the Bruins’ comeback.
The Canadians had a glorious chance to tie the game with 20 seconds left when Lucas Bailey’s centering pass hit the skate of Klyde Laplante crashing the crease and deflected right to Teagan Wrolstad, with the open left side of the net staring him in the face.
But with a desperate lunge, Bruins’ defenceman Isaac Magill managed to get his stick in front of Wrolstad’s shot and deflected the puck high in the air and towards the boards.
The Canadians got the early edge when Aiden Jean sailed a harmless-looking shot from above the right face-off circle past Bruins’ goalie Carter George only 2:51 into the game.
Laplante had two chances to add to the lead–backhanding the puck wide on a first-period breakaway and then sliding the puck just past the post in the second period off a feed from Ashton Veldhuisen.
Veldhuisen also was stopped by George in all alone in the period.
Gartzke didn’t miss, though, busting across the blueline and then veering to the middle before uncorking a bullet that zipped by George to make it 2-0.
Garon Merchant trimmed the lead just over two minutes later–racing into the Canadians’ zone and unloading a backhander that Levesque got a piece of before it dribbled into the net.
Levesque redeemed himself with a five-star breakaway stop on Matthew Lysak shortly thereafter.
His team showed its appreciation exactly 13 minutes into the second when Hunter McLean stole a wayward clearing try by the Bruins and passed to Laplante, who took five strides and then cranked a shot that eluded George to put the home squad up 3-1.
But in the third, the Bruins got goals by Lysak and George MacGregor to knot the score before Echum’s late-game heroics.
The Canadians opened play with a 10-2 rout of the Lake of the Woods Bears (Baudette).
Jean and Laplante had two goals apiece, with singles going to Gartzke, Alex Booth, Dakota Cooper, Ashton Armstrong, Wrolstad, and Hunter McLean.
Hayden Beckett earned the win in goal.
The squad then skated to an 8-1 romp over the Westfort Rangers (Thunder Bay).
Laplante again struck for a pair of markers while Armstrong, McLean, Veldhuisen, Jackson Tucker, Wrolstad, and Royce Allan were the other goal scorers.
Levesque manned the crease in what would be the first of his four-straight starts.
In a confrontation to decide first place in Pool ‘A’, the Canadians netted four first-period goals before hanging on for a 5-3 win over the Kenora Thistles.
McLean lit the lamp twice in that one while Veldhuisen, Allan, and Gartzke also tallied.
The semi-final against the Dryden Paperkings was a hard-fought affair that saw the teams tied 2-2 more than halfway through the third as Veldhuisen and Wrolstad got the goals.
Cue a Canadians’ explosion.
Veldhuisen and Gartzke scored eight seconds apart, then Wrolstad made it three goals in a span of 1:08 when he split the Dryden defence with one backhand and then returned to the backhand to deke goalie Chase Furlong.
The Paperkings got one back with Furlong on the bench for an extra attacker but still wound up losing 5-3.
As for the Emo Express, a group made up mainly of players who carried the Express White team to the Atom ‘A’ tourney title here the previous weekend, it was a rough ride stepping up to the ‘AA’ class as they went 0-5 while being outscored 43-4.
After a 10-0 loss to International Falls in their first game, the Express fell 10-2 to West End.
Callum McCormick had both goals for Emo.
Westfort then blanked the Express 6-0 before Dryden cruised to a 7-1 victory, with McCormick netting Emo’s lone goal.
In the seventh-place final, Lake of the Woods burned Emo for six goals in the first period en route to a 10-1 triumph.
Austin Mosbeck came out of the penalty box to score on a breakaway with 1:20 left to spoil the shutout bid of Bears’ goalie Jayce Lucek.
Karson Loughrey handled netminding duties all weekend for Emo.
This weekend, the Fort Frances Girls’/Women’s Hockey Association will host both its Novice and Atom tournaments at the Memorial Sports Centre.
