In preparation of Midget LL4 Wolfpack’s Skills competition,
Caleb and Jonah selected their teammates before Sunday’s Ingersoll game.
After careful selection by both Caleb and Jonah, the
following two teams have been chosen for the skills competition.
Team Caleb: (in alphabetical order by first name)
Caleb H., Deryk R., Evan S., Fletcher A., Jackson T., Josh H., Riley Mc H. and Riley McL.
Team Jonah: (in alphabetical order by first name)
Cameron H., Jaden R., Jonah H., Kaleb M., Lucas C., Spencer N. and Goalie (tbd).
Now that the teams are chosen, both Caleb and Jonah will have some homework ahead of them to prepare them with assigning their players to the different skills competitions. However, in order to be successful and victorious they will have to study their players and learn of their strengths and weaknesses.
Skills Competitions:
The skills competition drills, include:
1. Skills challenge relay
2. Four line challenge
3. Accuracy shooting
4. Fastest skater
5. Fastest backward skater
6. Shootout
7. Face off competition
Weekend game series versus Ingersoll
Our Wolfpack team had a weekend, back to back, game series with the Ingersoll Express 2 team.
The first of our two games was held in Paris at our home arena. If home ice advantage means obtaining in excess of 30 minutes in penalties than we were right at home in this game, sadly. This type of poor behaviour play had a major impact on the tone and outcome of the game.
Ingersoll lived up to their Express name as they blew in with 56 seconds into the game to score on our unsuspecting goaltender. Their lead would only triple, partially on account that our team was fighting off two penalties before the end of the first period.
Wolfpack, still down a player on the ice, made a great scoring play as Riley McHutchion received a pass from Josh H and took the puck from behind our net and skated up the full duration of the pad and stepped right up to Ingersoll’s goalie and tucked away the puck behind the Express’ netminder.
At the start of the second period, in reviewing the scoreboard we were still in the game; unfortunately, due to a string of penalties our team’s chances of scoring were diminished.
It turns out the warmest place in the rink was Paris’ penalty box seat, as it was a revolving door of players coming and going. They say chivalry is dead, not amongst our players as they were seen opening and closing the penalty box door for one another.
Although, we played most of the second period on a penalty kill, we held off Ingersoll from scoring when we were four skaters on the ice, Ingersoll did manage to squeeze in a goal late in the 2nd period, raising their lead to 4-1.
Ingersoll had their struggles in the game, as well, earning 18 minutes in penalties, which slowed them down and offered Paris some good chances and our players should be applauded for some fantastic shots on net, deek attempts and rebounds.
At the top of the third period, Deryk took it upon himself to capture a goal for our team as he circled the back of our net and drove the puck up the full ice, stick handling through Ingersolls team and finish the play with a memorable top corner goal.
An impressive unassisted goal, Deryk’s first of the season, naming him “Player of the Week.”
The next night, Ingersoll hosted the second of our two game series and they can only be described as a very hospitable host as their team did not earn a single penalty all game. Paris played equally clean, only taking two penalties all game, this allowed them to be much more competitive against the Express and the game was extremely balanced between both teams.
In fact, it looked like the game was going to end in a zero score tie game, until the last 5 minutes of the game when Ingersoll snapped a hard shot finding a top corner behind Caleb, a shot he had no chance on.
Good work by our players with showcasing some great passing plays and great hockey on Sunday night.
Congratulations to Deryk for being named this week’s, “Player of the Game.”
Kevin Noseworthy