Northwest Knights lose in Schreiber

There is an old saying that practice makes perfect.
While the individual talent undoubtedly was present, the lack of practice time which creates team unity definitely cost the Northwest Knights PeeWee ‘AAA’ team last weekend in Schreiber.
Despite high expectations going in, the Knights—which featured 12 members of the local K of C ‘AA’ Knights—came home empty-handed from the Northwestern Ontario regional playdowns.
The Knights lost both their games by narrow margins, falling 3-1 to the Thunder Bay Kings and then 8-7 in overtime to the host North Stars.
Repeated lapses in their own zone cost the Knights dearly in both games. The team often had trouble breaking out of their end and lack of communication between players unfamiliar with each other frequently resulted in missed defensive assignments.
This could be directly attributed to the lack of time they were able to spend together as a team.
The Knights went into the weekend with just two practices and four games under their belt, while both Schreiber and Thunder Bay had been together as teams since September.
Still, they came close. The game against Thunder Bay was not decided until the Kings scored their third goal with less than two minutes left—after the Knights had missed many chances to pull even.
Matt DePiero scored the lone goal for the Knights.
The game with Schreiber, however, was the real heart-breaker. With both teams needing a win to earn another shot at Thunder Bay, a closely-contested first period saw the teams emerge tied 2-2.
The Knights opened a 4-2 lead early in the second and had repeated chances to add to that lead, but they were turned away by some fine saves by the Schreiber goalie.
To their credit, Schreiber—which used two lines for much of the game—never quit and, despite being down two goals, kept coming at the Knights with tenacious forechecking.
Their hard work was rewarded with two quick goals midway through the period and the game again was tied.
But when the Knights closed out the period with two goals to grab a 6-4 lead heading into the third, it looked like a Knights-Kings final, which many had predicted before the playdowns began.
That all went horribly wrong. Two goals by the North Stars knotted things up yet again at 6-6 and, with less than four minutes to play, Schreiber scored its third-straight goal for a 7-6 lead.
The Knights battled back to tie the game at 7-7 on a goalmouth scramble and the two teams headed into a sudden-death overtime.
Unfortunately for the Knights, the overtime ended almost before it began.
After winning the opening face-off, the Knights brought the puck into the Schreiber end and, after failing to get a shot on net, turned the puck over for what seemed like an innocent rush.
However, Schreiber’s Steve McParland—who had been the best player on the ice all night—suddenly split the Knights’ defence and beat goalie T.J. Pocock for his third goal of the game just 38 seconds into the extra period to send Schreiber to the final.
The Knights’ goal scorers were Jon Sinclair and Matt DePiero (two each), Carson Dubchak, Luke Judson, and Joe Basaraba.
Thunder Bay wound up capturing the championship with a 7-4 win over Schreiber and now will represent Hockey Northwestern Ontario at the provincial championship next week in Sudbury.