The Elijah Smith Elementary Eagles soared over the competition at the Whitehorse Elementary Hockey Tournament on Wednesday at the Canada Games Centre.
For the gold, Eagles defeated Christ the King Wolverines 3-1 in the final.
Scoring for Elijah Smith were Ryan Troke, Kaine Comin - both players on the Peewee A Mustangs rep team - and Johnny Elias.
“The boys just played awesome,” said Eagles co-coach Angela Troke. “They had a rough start with their passing, then when they got the idea in their head that passing is what wins the game, they played awesome. They set up a lot of good plays and their passing was strong.”
The Eagles flew into the final with a 6-2 win over Jack Hulland Hawks, the eventual bronze medal winners, and shut out Ecole Emilie Tremblay 6-0 in the quarter-final. Getting the shutout and all the other wins for the Eagles was goalie Campbell Burdenie.
“He’s an awesome goalie,” said coach Troke.
Elijah Smith, which won silver in last year’s tournament, went undefeated. A 1-1 tie against fourth-place’s Whitehorse Elementary in the round-robin portion of the tournament was the team’s only blemish on their tournament record.
Scoring the Wolverine’s goal in the final was Matthew Braga.
Christ the King advanced to the final with a 4-3 shootout win over Whitehorse Elementary, last year’s tournament winners, in the semifinal. Wolverine Jarred Morgan scored the tying goal and then the game-winner in the shootout.
The Wolverines went undefeated up to the finals.
“They were pretty tired because the semifinal and finals were back-to-back games,” said the Wolverine’s coach Ron Billingsley. “So they were pretty gassed by the end.”
The Jack Hulland Hawks captured bronze with a 6-4 win over the Whitehorse Elementary School Wolves.
“Morgan Schmidt scored a nice goal in the bronze (game). Gavin and Niall Lawrie played well,” said Hawks coach Jeff Frizzell. “Ben Organ played a really strong game defensively in our last game.”
In what could shape up to be an ornithological grudge-match next year, the Hawks’ only two losses in this year’s tournament came against the Eagles, losing in the semifinal and during the round-robin.
“We played them twice on the big ice and they are a really fast team, and they took advantage of us,” said Frizzell.
Twelve teams, including two from Haines Junction and one from Teslin, took part in this year’s tournament.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com