the FFGHA
Several Fort Frances Girls’ Hockey Association teams travelled to tournaments in Thunder Bay and Kenora over the weekend.
The Rolling Lake Lightning Atom girls struck gold medal in Kenora on Sunday afternoon after outscoring their opponents 19-4.
Their first game of the tournament was against the Lake of the Woods Flyers on Friday afternoon. Thanks to the Lightning’s stingy defence, the Flyers had a hard time getting the puck in our zone.
The Lightning struck at 3:19 of the first when Annalise Hayes hit the twine.
After the Flyers scored less than a minute later, the Lightning then struck again two minutes later as Shannon Bird fired the puck into the net for a 2-1 lead.
In the second period, Kassidy Fryer worked hard and dumped the puck past the goalie for the Lightning’s third goal.
Annalise Hayes then scored the Lightning’s fourth goal in the third period to ice the 4-1 victory.
The second game for the Lightning was Friday night against a very determined Kenora Warriors squad.
Scoring the game’s first goal was Hayes on a beautiful pass from Breanna Dustin. But the determined Warriors found the net only 33 seconds later to tie the game.
Working hard in the corner was Jenna Clendenning as she passed the puck to Lauren Hamilton, who scored on a hard low shot to give the Lightning a 2-1 lead.
The hard-working Warriors had a lot of difficulty finding the net as Marissa Loveday played fantastic in goal while Macey Weir, Madisyn Botsford, Abby Plourde, and Katelyn Gurniak played exceptionally well on defence.
After a scoreless second period, Jocelyn George broke up the play to get control of the puck and passed it to Plourde in her own zone.
Plourde wound her way through the three forwards and down the ice to deke out both defencemen, then rifled the puck into the corner of the net for a beautiful end-to-end rush to give the Lightning a 3-1 lead.
The Warriors came back with another goal three minutes later to tighten the score but Hayes passed the puck out to Kassidy Fryer later in the third, who found the net to secure the 4-2 win.
The Lightning’s third game was against an even stronger Kenora squad, the Ice Cats, who had yet to be defeated.
Hayes scored a breakaway to put the Lightning on the scoreboard first in the first period. Then during the same shift, Dustin made a slick pass right on the tape of Hayes, who fired the puck into the net to give the Lightning a 2-0 lead.
Near the end of the first period, the Lightning struck again as Hayes scored her third goal, assisted by Gurniak.
Loveday again made awesome saves that kept the Ice Cats off the scoreboard. Meanwhile, the Lightning wouldn’t stop striking as the line of Shannon Bird, Hannah Ledrew, and Kelsey Langtry worked the puck from their zone all the way down to the Ice Cats’ zone.
Ledrew picked up a rebound and buried the puck to give the Lightning their fourth goal.
During the third period, Hayes again took a pass from Botsford to wrap it around the goalie for a 5-1 lead.
The Lightning didn’t let down as Dustin hit Fryer’s tape, who passed the puck to Hayes who scored her fifth goal of the game to seal the 6-1 win.
The Lightning squad was ready for the championship game as they held the Ice Cats scoreless, with Loveday earning the shutout in net.
Scoring for the Lightning were Ledrew, Fryer, Hayes, Dustin, and Plourde. Assists were given to Hayes and Plourde (two each), as well as to Botsford, Gurniak, and Dustin.
Meanwhile, the pink Novice Timbits played exceptionally well for their first tournament of the year in Kenora.
During the round-robin, the Timbits won a game 6-4, tied the Emo Novice team 2-2, and lost two games by scores of 5-1 and 7-2.
Goal scorers for the weekend included Meaghan Bruyere (six), Brenna Weir and Martina Woods (three each), Cameron Singleton (two), and Ziggy Skead.
They played four games in round-robin action to advance to the bronze-medal game.
In that game, Bruyere rushed up the ice to tie up the game in the final minutes of the third period but the Timbits eventually fell 5-4 in overtime.
Kyleigh Keith played great in net.
