Down by two goals with five minutes left in the final, a Whitehorse hockey team had enough juice left in the tank to boost themselves to the title.
Booster Juice scored two late goals to push an overtime before winning in a shootout to claim the Yukon Cup, Feb. 5 in Watson Lake.
The Juice squad came back to beat Jiffy Lube 6-5 in the final of the Yukon Novice Hockey Championships.
“Both teams had a number of good chances to end it in overtime,” said Booster Juice coach Jeff Frizzell. “Both goalies played unreal for that amount of pressure on a seven- or eight-year-old kid.”
“Both teams ended up playing just a fantastic final game,” he added.
Booster Juice went undefeated with five straight wins at the championship. They were backstopped the whole way by goalie Harrison Dolding, who was named MVP.
“He played spectacular all year long, especially for a kid who’s a first-year novice player,” said Frizzell. “A lot of the kids he’s facing are shooting a lot harder and more precise, and they can deke, so it’s a big step up.”
Scoring for the booster bunch in the final was Treytin Frizzell with three, plus others from Lenin Haggerty, Mannix Bingham and Kenai Bryden.
Huntley Asquith and Dylan Charlie both scored twice, Zeph Giam and Jacob Hendricks once, for Jiffy Lube in the final. Caleb Power played in net for the Jiffy Lube.
Whitehorse Dental, who lost to Jiffy Lube in overtime in the semifinal, went on to take bronze with a 7-1 win over Bank of Montreal in the third place game.
Scoring for Dental was AJ Boyd with three, Nathan Neunherz with two and individual submissions from Ronin Teramura and Brody Nash.
Adam Ireland scored for BMO.
Kilrich Industries beat home team Watson Lake 9-5 for fifth. Garage Door Depot claimed seventh with a win over a Teslin/Dawson combined team that placed eighth.
“We’ve won a lot of games this year, but a lot of the games we’ve won have been really close,” said Jeff Frizzell. “The teams in the novice league are really even. They improve so much as teams and as individuals, since the beginning of the year.”
Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com