Hayden
and Fletcher captained teams for the Bantam LL 3 skills competition that took
place on Saturday, February 25 at our Brant Sports Complex.
Hayden’s team donned the Home Team Red jerseys, whose team included
players: Jayden, Evan, Owen, Oscar, Liam and goaltender, James, while Fletcher’s
team wore our Visitor Black jerseys with players: Jackson, Spencer, Ryan, Ian,
Jack and goaltender Josh.
A big thank you to all of the coaches for all of the days of preparation involved to ensure that our skills competition ran smoothly and efficiently. Much of the preparation included researching all of the NHL skills competitions, obtaining drill specs, creating score cards and collecting the necessary equipment needed to run the drills. Coach Jeff – Voice of the Wolfpack entertained the crowd with his insightful banter about the players while providing play by play announcements throughout our skills competition event. Emerson and Adam played music to liven up the atmosphere and bring more enjoyment to the event.
Skills Challenge Relay was the first competition of the day that involved all team players, as it was a series of drills that made up one challenge. Hayden assigned Evan, Liam and Owen to be one timer shooters who needed to net a passed puck from the side of the net. Since, Liam was missing Owen had to shoot 1
st and 3
rd. After all 3 shooters scored it was on to the Accuracy passing with Oscar who needed to shoot the puck over a divider and accurately land the puck in each of the two mini-nets, which he completed with much ease. Next was Jaden to complete the puck control portion of the drill to stick handle a puck and circle around 6 pylons and as he crossed the finish line, Hayden stick handled through 8 pucks up and back. Finally, goalie James sent a number of pucks from his crease down the ice to end the drill by scoring which he did with the end timing of 2 minutes and 24 seconds for his team to complete this full drill.
Fletcher set up his team for the first challenge in the following
way with Fletcher, Jack and Jackson as the three one timer shooters. Ian was assigned passing accuracy, next was Spencer with puck control responsibilities then Ryan for stick handling duties and lastly Josh for goalie goals. Fletcher’s team ended with a recording time of 4 minutes and 41 seconds.
Four line challenge was the second challenge of the day that involved four players to line up at each of the blue, red and goal lines with two chances to score a goal in one of the holes in the accuracy screen in front of the goal net. Hayden’s team was represented by Oscar, Evan, Jaden and James with only Jaden
being the only player to score for his team.
Fletchers team comprised of Fletcher, Jackson, Ryan and Josh with only Ryan being successful in scoring for their team to tie up this challenge against the other team.
Accuracy Shooting the third challenge of the competition was the first solo player drill in which two players from each team had their chance to shoot 6 pucks at the net and hit as many of the four targets.
Jaden and Owen represented Hayden’s team while Ryan and Spencer competed for Fletcher’s team.
Jaden and Owen each earned two points by hitting two targets and collecting 4 points for their team, while only Ryan managed to hit one target and gain a single point for his team.
Fastest Skater one of the more highly anticipated match ups was the fastest skater race between Jack and Jaden as they are both quick and graceful skaters on our team. At the sound of the whistle both took off
skating hard around the rink with Jack finishing first at the blue line, only to realize that we stopped them at the mid-point. This meant we would need to have a rematch so that they can skate a full lap around the rink, with the second race going to Jaden.
Fastest Backwards Skater was a more technical skating challenge for Owen vs. Ian, two of our top defenceman who were perfect choices for this challenge. Another great close match but it was Owen who crossed the finish line first to win for Team Hayden.
Shootout was the final challenge of the skills competition and allowed all players from each team to compete for points to finish the competition. Goalies were posed in front of their net and stared down each of the shooters as they skated in from centre ice to try and score on them. Both James and Josh put on a good challenge, each saving 4 of the 6 attempts. Players Evan and Jaden for Team Hayden and Ryan and Ian for Team Fletcher were the only scorers for their teams to each earn two points.
After all points were tallied Team Hayden were winners of our Skills Competition while Team Fletcher were close finalists. Congratulations to all players and coaches on running a fun filled event.
A special thank you to Ronna for capturing some great photos of the event.
