Jan 02, 2011 | jvanhaelemeesch | 610 views
Squire John's Minor Bantams Compete At Richard Bell Memorial Tournament
Over the holidays, the Squire John’s Minor Bantams participated in the Richard Bell Memorial International Hockey Tournament in Oakville. In their preliminary round robin they played the Toronto Titans, Detroit Little Caesars, Barrie Colts and Kitchener Rangers.
The Highlanders played the Titans in the first game and goaltender Aaron Johnson (Chatsworth) up for the challenge. It wasn’t until 11:30 of the second period when the Titans opened the scoring. The puck slid into the Highlanders end on missed stretch pass and as Johnson rushed out to play the puck, the Titans player beat him to the puck and went in to score on the empty net. At 0:54 of the second period - with a 4-on-3 man-advantage – Logan Davidson stuffed the puck in at the side of the net. Jordan Vanhaelemeesch assisted on the goal. The third period was a draw, so the score ended up as a 1-1 tie.
Game two was against Little Caesars, who had won their first game 4-0 over Kitchener. Again, as in game one, the Highlanders kept the opposing team off the scoreboard for the first period. Detroit opened the scoring at 12:42 of the second period and widened the lead to 2-0 at 6:54. The third period evened out on the shot count, and the Highlanders failed to score on a few good scoring chances, one of them off the crossbar when Garrett McFadden (Kincardine) moved into the slot area and fired off a hard shot. At 5:56 Detroit scored again on a shot fired from the point that was redirected in off a Highlander defender. The Highlanders had a couple of chances near the end of the game as Detroit took a couple of penalties, but could not capitalize on the opportunities, with the game ending as a 3-0 score.
After the first day of the tournament, the Highlanders’ round robin group was closely knotted, with Detroit having 4 points, Barrie 3 points and the remaining three teams all tied at one point each. The top three teams of this group would go on to the next round after the day-two games were completed.
Game 3 against Barrie Colts started off well for the Highlanders as Caleb Stephens (Collingwood) scored on a 5-on-3 man-advantage at 7:18 of the opening period with Hugh Murray (Beaver Valley) and Brenden Welsh (Owen Sound) assisting on the goal. Almost 5 minutes later Stephens put the Highlanders up 2-0 when Jamison Buck made a stretch pass to send Stephens down the left side, where he fired one top shelf into the net. With the Highlanders in control of the game, threatening to add more insurance goals as they continued to apply good fore checking pressure on the Colts - especially from the Logan Davidson line – the Highlanders let the Colts back into the game when they allowed the Colts to score two goals 40 seconds apart around the 11 minute mark of the second period. With the score knotted at 2-2 it was a new game. The third period saw the Colts score a shorthanded break-away goal at 4:46 to take a 3-2 lead. The Highlanders continued to take the play to the Colts but could not score the equalizer. At 3:02 the Colts scored once more to make it a 4-2 win.
Game 4 against the Kitchener Rangers was the last game of the round robin series and had no bearing on who would go to the quarter-final game the next day. The Squire John’s played okay, but were a little off after learning they were out of the next day’s quarter-finals. By 9:23 of the second period they were down 3-0. Not giving up, the Highlanders got the next two goals, with Ben Van Ooteghem (Saugeen Shores) and Ethan Skinner (Kincardine) scoring, assists going to Darcy Witt (Collingwood), Jamieson Buck (Collingwood) and Spencer Elder (Owen Sound). Kitchener got two late goals to win the game 5-2.
Despite the 0-3-1 record, the boys competed in all four games and didn’t look out of place as they played teams that were all rated higher than they were rated.