On
February 20th through the 22nd the Hagersville Restaurant
Peewee LL Hawks travelled to Port Colborne to participate in the 51st
Golden Puck Hockey Tournament. The team
welcomed the opportunity to play some centers they would not normally face in a
regular season.
The first game was on Friday afternoon as they were scheduled to play a team from Manvers. Jaden Speers opened the tournament scoring opportunities for Hagersville when less than two minutes in he took a great shot on net and deflected the puck off of one of Manvers own defensemen. Hannah McNeice and Dylan Sherry assisted with the goal. The score remained this way until less than a minute left in the first when Manvers was able to find the net for their side. The second period was scoreless for both. In the third, with less than 5 minutes left, Brett Russell took a pass from Speers and shot bar down to give Hagersville the lead. Manvers scrambled to tie up the board and pulled their goalie for the extra man, with just over a minute left in the game. It looked as though Hagersville was going to take the win as they fought hard to keep their lead but, with literally less than a millisecond left in the game Manvers was able to sneak one in and the game ended even at 2 for both sides.
Hagersville had their second game scheduled for Friday evening and were to play Ingersoll. Ingersoll scored first in the game but it was all Hagersville after that. Dylan Sherry found Ingersoll’s net for the first goal of this showdown less than 6 seconds after Ingersoll scored, evening the score once again; the assist to Hannah McNeice. Michael Aube scored goal number two for the team assisted by Nolan McNeil and Jaden Speers. Brett Russell wrapped up the scoring in the first period for Hagersville assisted by Ethan Trainer and Drailyn Hill. In the second, Hagersville kept the momentum when Russell scored another for their side assisted by A.J. Elliott. Dominic Baillie scored a beauty as well in the second assisted by Owen Mattice. Russell scored again assisted by Brayden Topp and the last goal of the second went to Jaden Speers assisted again by Trainer. There were two goals scored in the third both by Russell, one assisted by Mattice and the other by Baillie. The final score was an astonishing 9 – 1.
The third game was an important one for Hagersville as they were competing with Manvers to move on in the tournament. Hagersville was scheduled to play Grimsby Blue on Saturday afternoon and this game proved to be challenging for the team. Hagersville was down 2 goals until late in the second when Russell was found the puck on the end of his stick and was the first Hawk to put one on their side assisted by Sherry and McNeil. Early in the third, Michael Aube was able to even the score with a great goal of his own assisted by Mattice. Hagersville took the lead less than a minute later when Russell took off with the puck after the face off and walked in to put in another for the team, unassisted. Hagersville took a beating from the other team after this as one of the Grimsby players appeared to like the view from the sin bin better than his bench. Luckily there were only a few bumps and bruises reported by the team but some of the hits could’ve been serious. Unfortunately this was the end of the line for Hagersville by just a fraction, as the rules would only allow 7 of Hagersville’s 9 goals from the previous game and it was not enough of a percentage to move on. The team should hold their heads high though as they did a great job and had a ton of fun during the weekend.