Local girls’ teams do well at hockey tourney

The sixth-annual Lake of the Woods invitational girls’ hockey tournament was held last weekend and both the local Novice and PeeWee teams had strong showings.
Pollard’s Scarifiers went unbeaten through pool play in the Novice division, and then won their semi-final match against Dryden, but fell 1-0 to the St. Boniface Stars (Winnipeg) in the final.
“The girls had a phenomenal weekend, it was the finest hockey played by a Fort Frances novice girls’ team in many, many years,” enthused co-coach John Pierce.
“The last game had it all–great shots, super goaltending, and an end to end pace that left the players exhausted and the parents’ hoarse,” he added. “It was the true definition of a barnburner.”
Co-coach Stuart McIvor agreed the tournament was quite gratifying.
“This was the first opportunity our girls had to play in an actual game this year,” he noted. “We got to go against another team and we weren’t really sure how they were gonna do, but we were pleased.”
Pierce noted the team played five strong games, and outscored their opponents 20-2 along the way.
“The girls played their hearts out all weekend,” he stressed. “When you play five games and only give up two goals while scoring 20, you have had a total team effort.”
“We were quite pleased with the girls,” echoed McIvor. “There was some rustiness in the games but you could see they were learning–from the first game to the next, we could see the progress.”
Pollard’s Scarifiers opened play with a 5-0 win over CJ Edwards and Son (Kenora). Katelyn Stearns had a pair of goals to pace the team, with Rachel Dutton, Kali Hamilton, and Jessica Barker netting the other ones.
Barker had a hat trick to spark the team to a 4-1 win over the Royal Purple (Kenora). Jessica Badiuk added Pollard’s other goal.
In their final game of pool play, the Fort cruised to a 6-0 shutout over the Red Muskies on goals by Badiuk (three), Karmon Perreault, Haven Labbe, and Lauren Miller.
In the semi-finals against Dryden on Sunday afternoon, Pollard’s dominated en route to a 5-0 victory. Badiuk had another hat trick to pace the team, with Krystina Scott and Miller rounding out the scoring.
Then in the final against St. Boniface, the girls were blanked 1-0 to settle for the silver medal.
“Our last game was a real test,” Pierce admitted. “St. Boniface cruised through the tournament so we knew it would be difficult to beat them–it was a good game.”
McIvor said except for a few goofy breaks, the game could have gone either way. “We were really impressed with the young girls, like the six and seven-year-olds,” he remarked.
“The coaches and parents are extremely proud with how the girls played and conducted themselves,” agreed Pierce. “Even though they are young, they were well-behaved.”
Unfortunately, the local PeeWee girls went 0-3 at the same tournament.
Opening against the East End Wings, Krystine Marchuk scored the Fort’s in a 2-1 loss. Then they lost 6-0 to the St. Norbet Storms before being shut out 5-0 to the L.O.W. Black Muskies.