Lucas Punkari
With the regular season title already in their back pocket, the Fort Frances Canadians PeeWee ‘AA’ hockey team completed their season on a winning note at the Ice for Kids Arena here on Sunday afternoon, as they prevailed in NWO PeeWee ‘AA’ league playoff tournament finals by a score of 4-1 over the Kenora Thistles.
“The guys are all pretty excited,” Canadians head coach Brent Tookenay said afterwards.
“We’ve been in seven tournaments this year, been to the finals in six of them and won three of them, so they have been pretty consistent.
“The entire coaching staff couldn’t be more proud to work with these guys, as the kids came every day for the last six months and worked their butts off.
“They deserve everything that they are getting right now,” he added.
The Canadians punched their ticket to the finals with a 2-0-1 record in the weekend’s round-robin, as they defeated the Dryden Paper Kings and the Thistles on Saturday before playing to a draw with the Sioux Lookout Flyers on Sunday morning.
“The guys were fantastic in the first two games, as they all worked hard out there and everyone played solid games,” Tookenay explained.
“We wanted to keep the good habits we had going in our game this [Sunday] morning, but it’s always more difficult when a game doesn’t mean as much, as we had already picked up our berth in the finals.
“Sioux Lookout came out and battled hard, and they played a great game against us, but we played a great third period and we carried that over into this game,” he added.
Awaiting the hosts in the finals were the Thistles, who defeated the Paper Kings 6-2 in the final round-robin came of the tournament to earn their spot in the title game.
“The kids stepped up and they played very well against Dryden, so we were all happy about that,” Thistles coach Dan Reynard explained.
“We wanted to be in the finals and we wanted to play Fort Frances, as they are the best team and we always play great games against them,” he added.
Sunday’s championship contest was no exception, as both sides went back-and-forth throughout the game, with the final score not truly being indicative of how tight it actually was.
“It was very similar to how the game was in the round-robin,” Tookenay noted.
“Kenora has a good team over there that is very well-coached, so we wanted to take away as much of their time and space as possible.
“We were able to do that by cycling the puck down low and working hard, and we were lucky to get a couple of shots by them,” he added.
Eric Pitkanen led the way for the Canadians with a goal and two assists, with James Gushulak, Ian Tookenay, and Byron Stewart also lighting the lamp.
Kadin Ilott had the lone goal for a Thistles team, who in the words of their head coach, may have ran into a bit of a brick wall in the finals.
“They only had that hour break between the last round-robin game and the finals, so that was pretty tough on those guys,” Reynard explained.
“But Fort Frances was very deserving of the win, as they put a lot into it and they had all three of their lines working hard,” he added.
While Sunday’s game marked the end of the Canadians season, some of the players on the team aren’t finished taking to the ice just yet.
Members of the team are currently taking part in the three-on-three league here, while nine members of the squad will be playing for the NWO All-Stars in the provincial PeeWee ‘AAA’ championships in Thunder Bay on April 8-12.
“The majority of the regional team is comprised of Fort Frances players,” Reynard, who is the head coach of the regional squad, explained.
“They played very well last week in the regional playdowns in Thunder Bay against the Kings, and I was impressed with how well they bounced back after a tough start.
“We’re all looking forward to playing in the provincials,” he added.
