All-Fort final at girls’ tourney in Winnipeg

Four Fort Frances girls’ hockey teams travelled to Winnipeg on March 28-31 for the ninth-annual St. Boniface Stars Cup.
Forty-nine teams competed in the Atom, PeeWee, Bantam, and Midget divisions, with Fort Frances being represented by the Pinewood Blades and Kitowski Trucking (Bantam) and the BDO Stars and Taylor Trucking (PeeWee).
On the Bantam side, the Pinewood and Kitowski squads held the hot hand, rolling right through the competition to vie for the tournament title on the Sunday afternoon.
In the championship final, Kitowski goalie Dana Cridland was unbeatable, backstopping her team to a 5-0 win over Pinewood.
The Blades held the territorial advantage in the first period but Cridland repeatedly slammed the door.
After a scoreless first, Kitowski captain Chelsea Hill opened the scoring on the power play with 8:37 to go in the second frame as she converted a feed from Taylor Dixon and Sydney Jones.
Hill scored again six minutes later, assisted by Shae-Lynn Smith, to put Kitowski up 2-0.
The Truckers closed the period by popping another goal with just 52 seconds left. Jillian Langtry did the honours, with assists from Katie Matthews and Chantal Jodoin, to give Kitowski a 3-0 advantage.
While Pinewood pressed early in the third period on the power play, Kitowski sniper Shae-Lynn Smith struck for a short-handed marker to push the lead to 4-0.
Smith (unassisted) capped the scoring at 4:54 as Kitowski claimed the win and the championship in the eight-team Bantam A-2 division.
To get to the final, Kitowski had dispatched the Nip-Rock Rangers 6-1 on Friday night. Jillian Langtry and Smith led the way with a pair of goals each while Hill and Dixon added singles.
Assists went to Lacey Durbin (two), Amber Morriseau (two), Melanie Scott (two) Hill, Langtry, and Monica Woods.
Game two Saturday afternoon against Kenora Prem was a low-scoring affair with Cridland again red hot between the pipes.
Smith and Langtry set up Hill early in the third period while on a 5-on-3 penalty kill for the only Kitowski goal while Kenora Prem got the equalizer with seven minutes left to forge the 1-1 tie.
The on Saturday night, the Truckers lit the lamp no less than eight times in an 8-0 whitewashing of Winnipeg’s Notre Dame Stars.
Dixon, from Langtry and Halle Shypit, and Hill, from Smith and Scott, made it 2-0 after the first.
The floodgates opened in the second frame as Hill (Morriseau), Durbin (Langtry), Langtry (Durbin), Smith (Hill), and Langtry (Dixon) increased the lead to 7-0.
Monica Woods, from Melanie Scott, closed out the scoring in the third.
The tournament win capped a remarkable season for Kitowski as they also claimed a first-place finish in the Thunder Bay tournament, and earned bronze in the Fort Frances, Warroad, and Dryden ones.
Pinewood also had a remarkable season—capping it with three dominating games to reach the Bantam final.
The Blades opened action with a 3-0 win over the Kenora Hot Hot Heat as MacKenzie Paxson earned the shutout in goal.
Joe-Dy Morrisseau opened the scoring with a short-handed marker at 7:47 of the first period, with assists to Julie Magill and Taylor Gouin.
The second period and much of the third produced no goals, with the Blades finally striking twice in the final three minutes to seal the victory.
Centre Allison Brown scored unassisted with 2:32 remaining, followed by an Emily Drouin goal (assisted by Kennadi Herbert and Bailey Langford) to close out the 3-0 victory.
Pinewood skated back on the ice Saturday morning against the Kenora White Lightning. Paxson was on her game again, shutting out the Kenora crew 4-0.
Kim Holt put the Blades on the board at 11:01 of the first off a set-up from Brown. The Blades then struck for two more goals in the second frame as Morrisseau (from Magill) and Magill (unassisted) made it 3-0.
Langford from Holt in the final period closed out the victory.
Then Saturday afternoon, the Blades rolled to a 7-1 win over the Selkirk Wings.
The Wings grabbed a short-lived 1-0 lead at 8:37 of the first, but Pinewood roared back with a pair of goals—Harley Labbe (unassisted) on the power play and Langford (from Herbert)—to go up 2-1 after one.
The Blades struck twice more in the second as Brown from Jessica Mainville, and captain Jessica Taggart from Ashley Smeeth, increased the advantage to 4-1 after two.
Taggart lit the lamp again early in the third, followed by tallies from Drouin (Brown and Bridget Jorgenson) and Brown (Drouin) to finish off the win.
< *c>PeeWee action
On the PeeWee side, the BDO Stars and Taylor International competed in the 12-team A-2 division. While neither team reached the medal round, they both battled hard in the face of some top teams from around Northwestern Ontario and Manitoba.
The Stars shone bright in their first game as goalie Savannah Woods shut out St. Eustache 3-0.
Alyssa Penner (unassisted) in the second period, Sarah Milling (unassisted) early in the third, and Penner (with her second tally of the day at 4:45 of the final period to earn game star honours) did the scoring for BDO.
The Stars got tripped up in their second game Saturday afternoon by the K-Town Thrashers.
The Fort Frances crew opened the scoring at 11:34 of the first period on an unassisted tally by Alyssa Penner. But it was all K-Town after that as the Kenora squad pumped two in the first, one in the second, and a pair in the third for a 5-1 victory.
BDO’s Cheynne Falloon was named the game star.
Then Saturday night, the Stars returned to the ice against the Notre Dame Stars of Winnipeg. The back-and-fourth affair featured elite goaltending at both ends as Savannah Woods and Catrina Guspodarchuk stymied their opponents at every turn.
The only chink in the goaltending armor came late in the first period as Alyssa Penner scored an unassisted tally to give BDO the hard-fought 1-0 win.
Emily Hyatt earned the game star.
BDO closed out the tournament, and their season, with yet another shutout, this time against the Southdale Stars of Winnipeg. Alyssa Penner led the way scoring both goals, with Alanna Walsh and Sarah Milling drawing the assists on her second goal.
The game star was Woods, who produced no less than three shutouts in a dominating weekend performance.
Taylor International also opened play Friday, crossing sticks with the Dryden Herricanes.
The two squads battled to a 1-1 draw in the opening period as Shelby Rae scored an unassisted goal with 46 seconds left to knot the score after one period.
But the Herricanes became the Hurricanes for the balance of the game as they stormed the Taylor goal, scoring five unanswered tallies for a 6-1 win.
Jamie Taylor was named the Taylor Trucking game MVP.
Taylor had the rise and shine game Saturday morning as they faced off against the Thunder Bay Fury at 7:30 a.m. The Fury played a very strong game from start to finish as they claimed a 7-0 victory.
Adrienne Gurski was named Taylor’s game MVP.
Next up was a date with the Southdale Stars—and the Taylor International crew would not be denied, skating away with a close 3-2 win.
Game MVP Nicole Horn scored a pair of goals, with Shailyn Loyie and Katie Sinclair drawing assists. Shilo Beck also tallied, with Shelby Rae earning that assist.
After garnering fifth place in Pool ‘B,’ Taylor crossed over to play the St. Eustache Jets on Sunday morning.
Shelby Rae turned in an MVP performance, but the Fort squad was stymied by the top-notch netminding of Kailey Schur, who backstopped the Jets to a 3-0 win to end Taylor Trucking’s season.