Staff
The Fort Frances Canadians Midget ‘AA’ hockey team came as close to the gold-medal game as possible without playing in it in Plymouth, Mn. over the weekend.
The squad fell 2-1 in a shootout against White Bear Lake in the medal round of the Wayzata Invitational.
The loss knocked the Canadians from the tournament because there was no consolation game in the medal round.
The Canadians had opened the tournament with a 6-2 win over Burnsville.
Fort Frances got off to a positive start when Tarran Romyn opened the scoring 2:45 into the game.
Chris Bobczynski followed up at 7:38 as the Canadians led 2-0 after the first.
Burnsville responded early in the second, but the Canadians regained their two-goal advantage just six seconds later on Ryder Woolsey’s tally.
In the third, Burnsville again clawed closer when Zach Walters scored at 3:13. But it was all Canadians from then on, beginning with D.J. Bombay’s marker at 7:46.
Bobczynski added his second of the game with 1:14 to go before Dylan Grinsell followed up 12 seconds later to secure the victory.
Later Saturday, the Canadians doubled St. Louis Park 4-2 to capture first place in the three-team pool.
After Jeff Gustafson staked the Canadians to a 1-0 lead early in the first, Romyn tallied to open the second and then Bombay netted a power-play marker to give Fort Frances a 3-0 advantage after two.
Lundy then made it 4-0 early in the third.
St. Louis Park fought back with a pair of goals on James Wallin, but their late surge fell short.
That put Fort Frances in the medal round, where they faced off against White Bear Lake—the top team from the “Yellow” pool.
White Bear Lake opened the scoring 2:36 in when Lee Letourneau tallied just after a Canadians’ penalty expired.
But the Canadians responded before intermission as Grinsell scored on the power play with 19 seconds left in the first.
From there, it was a goalie battle as neither team could score in the second and third periods.
White Bear Lake eventually won in a shootout, advancing to the gold-medal final with the narrow 2-1 victory.
The Canadians will play two exhibition games this week, including a showdown against the International Falls junior varsity squad tomorrow (Jan. 21) at 8:45 p.m. at the Ice For Kids Arena.
Then the Canadians will travel to Grand Rapids, Mn. on Saturday to take on the junior varsity team there.
The Canadians’ next tournament will be Jan. 29-31 in Grand Forks, N.D.
