The Dan Rear Lawn Service Minor Bantam Highlanders travelled to Ajax Pickering to compete in the Raiders' earlybird tournament. First up was the hometown Ajax Pickering Raiders.
The team came out strong in the first period and out played the hometown team. In the second period, we started taking lazy penalties and played short handed for most of the period coming out down 3 - 2. Our parade to the penalty box continued in the third and the Raiders capitalized on the powerplay opportunities and scored an 8 - 2 win.
In our next game we came up against the Huron Perth Lakers. trailing 4 - 1going into the third period, the boys showed lots of heart to come back and take a 6 - 5 win in a very spirited contest.
Next up for the minor bantam sqaud was the Oshawa Generals. Once again, we were playing comeback hockey being down 3 - 0. Again, the Dan Rear Lawn Service Minor Bantam squad showed that they will not quit and pulled out a 3 - 3 tie on a late goal in the third period.
In the last game of our round robin we faced the Clarington Toros in a must win game to make it to the semi finals. In another spirited affair the minor bantams came up short and fell 4 - 2 with some questionable goals being allowed.
All in all, there were some very positive signs of the team bonding together as well as good team play and puck control in our first tournament.
Our first regular season game is this Saturday in Burlington.