Three Mustang hockey teams, Whitehorse’s rep squads, travelled to three tournaments, bringing home three third-place finishes last weekend.
The midget Mustangs won bronze in the Abbotsford Memorial Tournament, in Abbotsford, BC.
The midgets lost 7-1 in semifinals to Coquitlam, with the lone Mustangs’ goal coming off the stick of Trevor Hanna. They finished third overall based on points.
“We did much better than we did last year,” said midget Mustangs coach Jim Stephens. “Last year, I think we had only one tie in the round-robin, so there’s a big improvement.”
On the road to the semifinals in the round-robin, the midgets won two and tied one, including a 4-2 win over Seattle and a 3-2 defeat of North Shore, BC, with left winger Bryden Cook getting three goals along the way.
“He was our best player from the goal-scoring perspective,” said Stephens.
The bantam A Mustangs reached the podium at the Wetaskiwin 86ers Bantam AA Invitational in Wetaskiwin, Alberta.
“I thought we played really well and we got better every game,” said bantam Mustangs coach Jay Glass. “We competed hard, showed a lot of intensity and played the physical game - it’s hard to go from here in rec league into a bantam, contact tournament. But we really picked up our physical game and finished our checks.”
The midgets began the tournament with a 5-2 win over Edmonton’s Confederation on Friday, but the following day lost 4-2 to Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, who went on to win the tournament.
On Saturday, against Wetaskiwin, the Mustangs won 10-4 after going down 3-0 early in the game. The win put them in second for their division.
In their final game against the other division’s second-place finishers, the North SEERA Jets from Edmonton, the Mustangs won 7-1 for third place overall. Scoring for the Mustangs against the Jets were Jared Steinback with two, Matt McCarthy with his second hat trick of the tournament, and Mike Arnold and Mitch Read each with one.
Competing at the Revelstoke Atom Development Tournament, a Tier 3 tournament in Revelstoke, BC, the atom junior Mustangs went 2-2 at for a third place finish.
“We competed in every game,” said atom Mustangs coach Wade Comin. “I feel if we had our captain, Matthew Butler, we would have been in the medal round and possibly even won the tournament.”
The Mustangs’ wins were a 4-3 victory over the Ridge Meadows Rangers and a 7-2 win over the North Okanagan Knights to start the tournament. After cruising to a 2-2 tie against the Knights, the Mustangs took off, led by the playing of Jesse McCuiag, who finished the game with a hat trick and an assist.
“He’s like a freight train,” said Comin of McCuaig. “There was no stopping him that game.”
Currently the peewee Mustangs are in Spruce Grove, Alberta, for the Remembrance Day Cup and will be competing through the weekend.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com