The Wild Ride Home

Today’s edition of Tales from the Timebox is dedicated to Lyle Frisby. Lyle was a great volunteer for our town, the Lions Club, Curling Club, and Fire Fighters to name a few. He will be sadly missed.

This past weekend we held the annual Jim Vinge Memorial Tournament to wind up the season. This is the ninth year running and it still brings out a ton of fun for everyone, the players, parents and fans. What a great way to honour a man who I personally know would do anything to help keep the arena up and running.

Five teams as usual. Each team with a captain and a goalie drafting players of every level and age, from 18 to 65 to make up their roster. From former Jr. A Pontiacs players, Jordan ‘Krank’ Krankowski and Jordyn ‘Fuzzy’ Wozniak to B & R Bullets alumni such as myself.  Big thanks goes out to Leeanne Vinge & her family, and to the tournament committee,  all the concession workers, bar workers and anyone else who volunteered to make this a huge success. As Jim would  say “You’re the best!”.

Big news in out of town action this past weekend. Elk Point’s very own Jenna ‘Precious’ Poitras and the Dewberry Wild Female Midget team won the gold medal in the Annual Midget B Female Spring Classic down in Cochrane. Her mother Lori is the Wild  team manager. She came to the team with a load of experience. Lori was the team manager with the Storm girls for four years and many times in the past for the Avalanche boys teams.

Other former Storm players on the Wild included Jace ‘the Jackhammer’ Weidmark, who by the way was named the fastest skater in the skills competition. Jelena ‘Prime Time’ Parr, Laramie ‘Louis ‘ Parr and  Ashley ‘Hacksaw’ Hunter.

Some other Wild player took home nods at the skills competition, including Jenna Bowman and Shelby Hinecker. Bowman won the hardest shot in the skills competition and the Wild goalie Hinecker won the goaltender challenge.

The newly formed Dewberry Wild team coached by former Storm coach Art Parr, Glen Whittaker and Sydnie Ronyk played in their very first year in the North Central Female league. They had a very successful season; making it into the third round of Provincial Round Robin before being beaten out by Lac La Biche. As well, they ended playing one round in the playoffs. Maybe could have been more rounds, except they met up against the number one seeded team from Irma.

The Wild decided to enter the Cochrane tournament way back in December as a nice way to get some team bonding, do some shopping and have fun for the girls and parents to end the year.  Winning it all was a bonus they hadn’t even considered at the time.

The first game on Thursday against Edmonton, the Wild came out of the chute flying winning 5-2. After that, the Wild never really looked back. Although, it wasn’t nearly as easy in the second game, they really had to work for the win.

The second game on Friday, Jenna Potrais scored the eventual game winner against Calgary and was given the hard hat award by her teammate Jenna Faltermeier for always being so positive. Precious scored the only goal until the final minute when the Wild would add an empty netter.

The third game, held on Saturday morning, was much easier. The Wild winning 7-1 over Rocky Mountain House. The win landed them in the semi final game later that day against the host Cochrane.

The Wild were down 2-1 after the first period and then 3-2 after forty minutes.  It looked like the Wild may have reached the end of the line. Start packing up the camper and heading north a day earlier after all.  But not so, the tension grows. The coaches giving them a pep rally in the dressing room. In the third they poured on the coal. Working together as a team they tied the game. Wild, wild horses couldn’t hold them down now. Bang, bang ,bang, into the mesh. The Wild winning 7-3 sending them to the final on Sunday against Calgary.

Another nail biter. One all the score after the first period. The Wild pulling out all the stops with a huge rally in the second period pouring it on, pumping in three unanswered goals, 4-1 after 40 minutes. Into the third period, nothing was going to stop them now. The Wild could see the checkered victory flag and kept the foot on the gas winning 5-1. Gold medal and bragging rights for the whole summer for the Wild and a wild, wild ride home !!