Millbrook Stars Peewee Team was up for the DQ Challenge

Photo Timmie Brady

The weekend of January 13th, 2017 the Millbrook Stars Peewee White team made the long drive to South Huron Ontario to compete in the DQ Challenge Cup.

It was their first away tournament of the year and the boys were excited and nervous but above all ready to play.

Their first game was 2:35pm on Friday afternoon. After a long drive they came out strong but lost a very tight 3-2 match up. The boys retired to the outdoor rink at the resort to lick their wounds and work on their moves. Despite playing well into the night they came back refreshed and fierce the next morning trouncing the Lucan Irish 6-0 for goalie Austin Durand’s first shut out of the tournament.

Later that afternoon they met the Hagarsville Hawks for a very rough and tumble 4-1 victory. Battered and bruised but still in high spirits, the team retired back to the resort to anxiously await the results to see if we would advance. Not until after 9pm did we learn that not only would we advance to the semi-finals, we had finished 1st place in our pool.

Once again the boys played hockey well into the night on the resort’s outdoor rink, even playing shinny with the Millbrook Bantam team – and schooling them, too, according to the Bantams.

At 10:20am the next morning, bleary eyed but ready, the team set out for the South Huron Recreation Centre for what would prove to be our toughest game of the weekend. The boys came out strong against the South Huron Sabres and despite dominating them, taking countless shots on their net from all angles, they could not solve the puzzle of the South Huron goalie.

At the end of regulation play the score stood at 0-0, and we started a 3 on 3 five minute sudden death overtime period. Again despite controlling the game for almost all of the period they just could not slip the puck past the South Huron goalie. And so the game moved on to a shoot-out.

So thoroughly had the Stars controlled the play to this point that the coaches were worried that goalie Austin Durand would be cold and stiff from inactivity. They need not have worried. Austin was ready.

The first three shooters were selected and one by one they went out and did not score. It was sudden death now – the next unanswered goal would win. The coaches carefully lined up the kids on the bench. Some parents couldn’t watch. The entire arena was silent. Carson Clarke, the Stars 4th shooter, lined up. With the ref’s whistle both players headed towards their respective nets. Carson scored and the entire rink erupted. Seconds later everybody realized that the referees were pointing into both nets. South Huron had scored as well.

Fifth skater – no goals.

Sixth skater – no goals.

 

Seventh skater – no goals.

Eighth skater – no goals.

Ninth skater – Keegan Kruk bangs the puck past the South Huron goalie and Austin makes the save! The Stars win!

The triumphant Stars would be facing the New Hamburg Huskies in the championship game at 3:35pm that afternoon.

Going into the final you could see the fatigue in all the kids. Both teams had fought hard to get this far and the games had taken their toll. But the Stars had come a long way and they were resolute. Once again they controlled the play and carried the game to a 4-1 victory.

Coaches Glen Hunter and Kim Hartwick, trainers Mike Clarke and Ric Ashton and manager Erin Durand want to thank the kids and the parents for making this such an enjoyable tournament. Watching the kids play together and bond was definitely one of the highlights of the year. Hopefully we can carry this level of play into the rest of our season. Go Stars!

By Glen Hunter

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