Bradford Day 2, News, Major PeeWee "AE", 2015-2016, Rep (Whitchurch Stouffville Minor Hockey Association)

This Team is part of the 2015-2016 season, which is not set as the current season.
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Oct 18, 2015 | AlecT | 805 views
Bradford Day 2
Our PWAE matched up with the home town PWA Bulldogs on Saturday, Oct 17.  The Clippers' play lagged in the early going, not taking the play to the Bulldogs, which had us on our heels in the first period.  The 10 minute buzzer ended with the Bulldogs up only by 1 thanks to some spectacular saves by Adrian.

The coaches rallied the boys in the second period, and the play became much grittier, and the Clippers shook off the daze and started wining battles and to get pucks.  This became much more challenging as the PKs mounted up, forcing the Clippers to play short handed for a lot of the remainder of the game.  At 3-0, things seemed less hopeful, but the boys finally stole a goal from the strong goaltending of the Bradford minder, who was shutting out a lot of close calls in the second half of the game.  The game looked done with a final score of 3-1 but for a very last second goal by the Bulldogs - with 1.6 seconds remaining, one flew in from the blocker side to tilt the final tally to 4-1.

Notwithstanding the scoreboard, Coach Ross said our goaltender, Adrian, definitely earned the MVP for that game.

With this result, we moved on to our toughest match up, Ottawa Sting up at Nottawasaga for a 7pm start.  It would take the boys a 7 goal differential to be able to move forward to Sunday`s play, and the coaches knew that.  But what mattered more was playing with pride, and playing to meet the skill and speed of an undefeated Ottawa Sting squadron.  Every shift would require top effort.  The Sting showed off team play and sharp play from the first puck drop.  Bigger and faster, they commanded a lot of the game, forcing our shifts to be longer than we would normally want.  The calls went more against us than for us for sure, and the scoreboard was kept contained through much of the game.  At 2-0 against, again we were picking up a few more chances, then an errant shot deflected first off Josh and was heading wide until it pinged off Nolan`s skate and eked in for an unearned goal... But we concede, they all count so it was now 3-0.  The Sting seemed to slow down or we were speeding up, and our forwards came closer with better plays in the offensive zone and bigger pinches working out.  It was exciting to see the boys rally and give the Sting something to worry about as shots made their way to the crease. 

I would love to report that we made good on the mounting threats, but alas, momentum kept turning around as we had some penalties, and eventually notwithstanding possession of the puck, we had to make the line changes.  In the end, we did not mark a point, and the final was 5-0 against.  But what mattered most was the collective helmet patting, circling our goalies and being proud to play for a team with heart and spunk.

When you enter a higher level tournament you fully expect to have some humbling moments.  We had many through the 4 games.  Just those little things that only experience can teach - we saw them from the stands, the coaches saw them from the bench, and the players experienced them for 120 minutes of all out hockey play.  Why set ourselves up for failure like this, some might say?  Not a single kid or parent or coach would see it this way.  On the contrary, this was a full success.  3 extremely competitive games, one win, one near win, one that could have been a win on a different day... And the stinger tutorial from Ottawa ... a respectable opponent that we can learn much from.  We are now even more set up for success than before. 

Well done Clippers.  Work hard.  Play smart.  Take on the challenge of being even more than we are today.

We have a couple of days of rest, then we will see you all back for regular season play against Barrie Blue at Allandale arena on Wednesday. 

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