Jamie Mountain
It’s not how you start but how you finish.
That’s the best way to describe how the weekend unfolded for the Fort Frances Atom ‘AA’ Canadians at their annual home tournament.
After dropping their first two games, the Canadians stormed back with three-straight wins to claim the six-team tourney title.
Landen Hanson and Hunter McLean each scored twice to lead the Canadians to a 5-2 triumph over the International Falls Broncos in Sunday’s final at the Ice For Kids Arena.
International Falls opened the scoring at 5:49 of the first when Asher Keep banged one past Canadians’ goalie Gage Mitchell.
Hanson then tied it 1-1 with his first of the game 2:34 into the second period.
McLean then gave Fort Frances a 2-1 lead with 7:42 to go, finishing off a feed from William Yerxa.
Dakota Copper then tallied with 42 seconds left to push it 3-1 after 30 minutes.
Hanson roofed his second of the game just 33 seconds into the final frame to give the Canadians a commanding 4-1 lead.
The Broncos got one back with 8:26 to go off the stick of Keep, but McLean fired a shot while beside the left side net with 6:55 to go to cap the scoring.
The result came as a form of revenge for Fort Frances, who had opened the tournament Friday with a 6-5 loss to those same Broncos.
Yerxa scored twice in that one while Hanson, Ashton Armstrong, and Lucas Bailey added singles.
The squad then fell 3-1 to the Westfort Rangers (Thunder Bay) on Saturday.
Cooper scored the lone goal for the Canadians in the first period.
But they rebounded with a 7-4 decision over the Kenora Thistles later in the day to salvage a spot in Sunday’s semi-finals.
McLean, Bailey, and Armstrong all notched a pair of goals to pace Fort Frances’ attack while Cooper added a single.
The Canadians then got another crack at the Rangers in Sunday morning’s semi-final, which ended in their favour this time around.
Griffin Webb, Cooper, and Anthony Yerxa all tallied to lead the Canadians to a 3-1 win and set up a rematch in the final against International Falls.
The Rangers claimed bronze with a 5-3 triumph over the Baudette Bears.
The Dryden Paper Kings, meanwhile, beat the Thistles 5-3 in the consolation game.
The Fort Frances Girls’/Women’s Hockey Association will host both its Novice and Atom tournaments here this coming weekend.
