Thanks to Todd Wood and the wonderful staff at Legends Tap
House & Grill for allowing us to hold our Bantam LL1 team holiday pizza
party. Players and parents, alike, had a
great time chatting and laughing over food and refreshments and relaxing before
our last big game of 2015.
Much of the discussion was over tonight’s home game
following dinner against the Woolwich Wildcats LL1 team, who is the top ranked
team in the league. Although, our players
anticipated that it was going to be a hard game, they were up for the challenge
and battled hard against the Wildcats.
During tonight’s festivities at Legends, I discussed a new team challenge that would take place during the weekend of our Ernie Clayton tournament in Welland, in which our team would be split into two teams and they would compete one on one in 6 unique challenges and a final team challenge that would include the coaches. I appointed two captains for this fun exercise, so Evan Shipp or Team Shipp was drawing names against Gavin Pakulis or Team Pakulis.
Gavin won the coin toss, allowing him to pull the first team mate name from the box and he chose ‘Jack’. Evan then pulled his first team mate from the box and he chose ‘Ethan.’ At the end of the draw the teams made up were for TEAM PAKULIS: Gavin, Jack, Liam, Spencer, Austin and Evan Scott. For TEAM SHIPP: Evan Shipp, Ethan C., Owen, Eli and Braden. The bonus draws were for the coaches, since Evan had one less player he was able to choose an extra coach to balance his team against Gavin’s. Coaches Don and Kevin will join Gavin’s team while coaches Terry, Tyler and Shawn will join Evan’s team.
The captains and teammates were instructed that they will have to assign one challenge per player for each of the six challenges, with one player from Evan’s team doing two challenges, since they are one player less than Gavin’s team. The challenges will be arm wrestling, fastest to get dressed into their full hockey equipment, NHL trivia, dizzy race, shooting accuracy, and stick and ball dribbling. The team challenge will be a tug of war that will include the coaches ~ guaranteed Kodak moment!
Tonight, our team was still missing Jack Kraemer from our lineup as he continues to enjoy his vacation time; fortunately, we were able to call upon our AP player Connor Hardie for tonight’s game, who hustled and bustled out there on our defensive line with Eli Stowe, who made for a great defensive tag team. Although, Connor is first year Pee Wee you would have never known by the way he stood up strong against the powerful Woolwich Bantam boys. Connor was responsible for some great defensive plays, he impressed the coaches so much, that he was named ‘Player of the Game,' great job Connor!
It was great to welcome back our trainer Shawn Novak after his puck mishap during our exhibition game last Friday in Simcoe. Many thanks to my other coaching staff: Tyler Stowe, Terry Shipp, Don Crozier and Brad Clarke for all of your support so far this season, as well as, to our team Parent/Player reps: Ray Koehler and Shelley Scott for being on call 24/7 to resolve any arising issues.
Tonight's game started off on a good foot with both teams fighting hard to make the first move and score, our first period ended in a tie of 0-0. Our second period started off like the first period with no change in the score until the 6 minute mark when Woolwich slipped the first puck by our strong goalie, Ethan Crozier. Our forwards played well together and executed some impressive offensive plays; unfortunately, they were met each time by their stubborn goalie who refused to let anything by him tonight.
Our players really came out to play tonight and offered a good show to their family and friends in the stands who were heard cheering them on to the very end of the third period, this was maybe one reason why they were seen not giving up and having some of their best scoring chances even in the final seconds of the game. Congratulations to all of our players for performing to the best of their abilities and playing a smart, clean hockey game and not receiving a single penalty in this game.
On behalf of the coaching staff I would like to wish all of our players and their families a wonderful holiday season and much success and health for 2016 and we will see you back on Jan 2/16 for our next game.