It would seem the Roadhouse Bar and Grill took a build-it-and-they-will-come approach to their trophy case. It worked, it just took awhile.
After four empty years, the bar’s case finally got an occupant when the Roadhouse Ramblers won the A division of the Rendezvous Hockey Tournament at Takhini Arena on Sunday.
“Our sponsor at the Roadhouse, she’s been pressuring us to win for years now and we finally got her a trophy to put in at the bar,” said Ramblers forward Mark King. “She was happy about that.
“She built a big trophy case and there’s been nothing to put in it for four years.”
The Ramblers, who went undefeated at the tournament, took the title with a 4-1 win over the Whitehorse midget Mustangs in the final.
“Everyone was scoring really good over the weekend,” said King. “In the final, our defence played a lot better than the forwards - it was a real defensive game.
“One stand-out was Tim MacIntosh. There was an open net in the first period when the game was close and he made a couple saves from his knees and kept the game real close. He blocked an open netter when (goalie) Matt (King) was in the corner - he made a glove save - and that would have tied the game up and changed things in the final.”
Scoring for the Ramblers was Clayton Thomas with two, Tyson Wirth and Scott Horsey with an empty-netter. Finding the back of the net for the Mustangs was Brayden Kulych.
The Roadhouse reached the final with a 7-3 win over Dawson City in the semifinal.
“Our goalie (Matt King) played really good in that game - he played good all weekend, actually,” said King.
Murphy Built tames Bears
With seven different players scoring, and all but one player getting a point, it was a real team effort as Murphy Built defeated the Selkirk Bears 11-3 of the B division final.
“The whole team came out for that one - it was the best game we played all season,” said Murphy Built co-captain Skyler Hougen. “Everything was coming together and we were plugging away.”
A late first-period goal by co-captain Chris Evans with four seconds left, putting Murphy Built team up 5-2, was the beginning of the end for the Bears.
“That gave us some momentum going into the second,” said Hougen.
Indeed. Within the first minute-and-a-half of the second, Murphy Built scored three more goals, expanding the lead to 8-2.
Scoring a pair of goals each were Matt Dickson, Shawn Whellan, Nathan Dumont - who also had two assists - and Hougen. Matching Evans with individual goals were Brian Douglas and Doug Cote. Justin Quigley had five assists.
On the Bears’ side were Morris Morrison, Darcy Carlick and Shawn Robert scoring.
Murphy Built’s only defeat at the tournament was a 6-2 loss to Dawson during the round-robin.
“They were kind of pissed off because we beat them in the finals of their own tournament,” said Hougen. “One of them said, ‘We can beat you, but we can’t beat you when it counts.’”
Uncoachables dominate women’s division
You know a team has dominated a tournament when organizers start considering changes to prevent blowouts next year.
“I think they are going to change the rules next year so our team is not that strong,” said Uncoachables defenceman Ruby Ho.
Not only did the Uncoachables, a team mostly made up with players from the Whitehorse Women’s Hockey League, outscored the competition 44-2 in the round-robin, they went on to win the women’s division with a 8-1 win over the Ritas.
In the final, the Ritas actually drew first blood early on with Danielle Hodgson scoring on a breakaway. However, the lead was short-lived as Uncoachables’ Krystal Mckenna quickly responded with her first of three.
“She’s one of our top players for sure,” said Ho.
Also scoring were Stephanie Hedley, Christine Kirk with two, Laura Grieve and Ho.
Many of the Uncoachables will reunite for Anchorages’ Fools on Ice tournament on the first of next month - April Fool’s Day.
“The nucleus of the team is who we’ll be taking to Anchorage,” said Ho. “This year we thought we had enough good players we could send a really good team.
“The team we’re taking to Anchorage is stronger, so hopefully we’ll compete there.”
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com