Welcome to the Big Show

No pressure just another hockey game!  There’s nothing to be ashamed of when you know you lost to the eventual gold and silver medal winners. Yeah right, easy for you the coaches and parents to say that.

The Atom Avalanche who were the Atom Provincial D hosts couldn’t quite do it this past weekend in the finals. But the two teams that played in the final game were from their four team pool. Viking winning the silver medal and Magrath winning the gold medal.  Both of those teams defeated the Avalanche in round robin games that were closer than the eventual score would indicate.

Friday night, right after the opening ceremonies, the Avalanche played Magrath. The house packed to the rafters, so you can just imagine what kind of pressure was on these young players who had never competed in a provincial tournament before. Let alone one played at home. They played well, some people may say, maybe not totally to their potential as you could expect, but some others of them certainly did. Especially their goalie ‘Goodyear Charlie’ Lesyk who was named the second star of the game.

The next game for the Avalanche was played on Friday in front of all their schoolmates from the Elk Point Elementary. The school students and staff had special permission to come over and watch the game against Onoway. This time the little Avalanche players didn’t seem nearly as nervous, or maybe they had something to prove something to their classmates. Either way, everyone on the team picked up their game. The Avalanche coming through with a big win.

Evett ‘Snoop Dog’ Smereka named the first star. Braylee ‘Little Willy’ Lesyk winning the third star. Really though, any one of the Avalanche players on the team could have been picked as a star in this one.

The final round robin game was another must win game against Viking on Saturday afternoon. The team played their hearts out but really struggled to find the mesh. Didn’t seem to have a whole lot of luck with the puck at all either. Seemed like the puck just was hitting the crossbar or posts and finally the team powered out in the third period to the eventual silver medal winners.  Madden ‘Mad Dog’ Flamand scored the first two goals and was named the second star.

A terrific weekend otherwise and a huge pat on the back to the tournament chairperson Tara Cameron and her committee, Lori Kadutski, Jackie Penz, Andrea Ballas and Lisa Warawa for putting in so much time and effort before and during the weekend. It takes a tremendous amount of work but we are known as one of the best provincial hosts and have nothing but positive feedback. A huge shout out to all the minor hockey, pond hockey and skating club parents. And everyone else, Big Ray, the ATB and Credit Union and Lions and others who I may have forgotten to mention who  came out and worked the concession, the 50/50’s, raffle table etc.  and made this a successful and profitable weekend for our arena. And finally a big thank you to our caretaker Brian ‘Putts’ Poitras for keeping the ice clean and keen all season long and especially this past weekend being as warm as it was outside.

In out of town action two of our local bantam aged boys, ‘Mick Jager’ Fontaine and Landon the ‘ Magnificent ‘ Malachowski playing on the St, Paul Canadiens team won the Bantam D silver medal down in Vermilion this past weekend.

This coming weekend the Midget Avalanche will be travelling to Calgary to play in the Midget B Provincial finals. This is not their first rodeo. Last year the midget Avalanche team brought home the silver medal.  How about gold this year boys? Lets do this!