Nov 21, 2016 | Tyard | 646 views
Home Tournament Finalists!
The South Muskoka Bantam/Midget Tourney was this past weekend and both teams had great runs. We congratulate the Bantams on a great tourney where they narrowly lost the final game in a shoot-out. Well done! The Midgets had a great run too but also narrowly lost in the final.
Oddly, the schedule design forced the 'host' team to play a final which was their second game of the day and 3rd within 24 hours, against a rival who was rested and playing their only game in well over 24 hours! This was a severe disadvantage to the South Muskoka Midgets or any team that advanced from their division. Regardless of this, the Midgets gave this game everything they had left in the tank!
They won their 1st 3 games of the tourney fairly handily but Sunday morning they had to win a 4th in order to advance to the final later in the day. Dundas proved to be a stern test. They were a very physical and smooth skating team. It took everything the Bears had to subdue Dundas but they did!
This set up a final game against Huntsville. In our last regular season meeting, with all men on board, healthy and rested, the Bears had won 6-2. This game was slightly different and very, very close. In the 1st the Bears jumped out to an early 1-0 lead, the Otters immediately tied it up just 13 seconds later. In the 2nd the Bears went ahead 2-1... but the Otters again tied it up just a few minutes later. Finally, the Otters again scored quickly which turned out to be the GWG. The Bears put up a good effort to tie it up late but it's fair to say they simply ran out of gas. The line-up by game's end was down 3 players from what it started the game with...and we began the game already 2 men short from their regular lineup.
It was a great weekend of hockey regardless of coming up just a little short. The players displayed amazing determination, stamina and grit that they will hopefully carry forward to the Sliver Stick Tourney next weekend.