Depending on your company in the car, the drive to Slave Lake can be very, very long. But the town itself has a charm that reflects the surrounding boreal landscape and its resilient, community-minded citizens.
I wish it were a bit closer to Jasper, for those reasons and for the fact that I bet Jasper’s PeeWee Bears are going to spend some time there this winter.
This past weekend, a convoy of Jasper’s 11- and 13-year-old hockey players, parents in tow, made the trek to Slave Lake to see how they match up against their rivals from small-town, central and western Alberta.
Our kids, a mix of four second-year and nine first-year players, competed in three games against teams from Whitecourt, Mayerthorpe and Slave Lake in this nine-team tournament that also included Hinton, Sangudo, Edson, Fox Creek and Swan Hills.
There is no suspense here. The object is to play your game. Wins and losses only matter to the extent to which you win and lose, and in the three games played, Jasper lost against Whitecourt by one goal and beat both Mayerthorpe and Slave Lake by healthy margins.
Now Hockey Alberta will stare into a crystal ball and determine who plays whom in our league.
I suspect we’ll be seeing these teams again, but I said that last year too and was very wrong. I’ll let you know what spooky outcome wafts from head office on Halloween.
Tiering tournaments are also the first chance for coaches and fans to see this combination of players in a game situation. This is very telling.
In their first game against Whitecourt, Jasper got behind three to nothing by the end of the first period. Experience would have told me that a meltdown was nigh, and indeed before Jasper could turn the tide, they were behind 5 to 1. But a combination of penalty trouble for the Wolverines and a gritty performance by all four Bears’ second-year veterans had Jasper pulling up to within one by the final buzzer. An impressive performance for this young squad and a patient coaching staff.
Game two against the Mayerthorpe Mustangs was a shooting gallery.
Bears netminder Duncan McLeod made a few crucial early stops and then the Jasper goal scorers took charge. Blueliner Cooper Hilworth was wheeling all over the ice and potted two. Smooth-skating Rhys Malcolm found the net three times and first-year star of last year’s Atom Bears, Matteo Tassoni, scored four goals, including one empty-netter from mid-ice, to finish the game.
With one game under their belt, and a few nerves worked out, first-year PeeWees Olivia Fonger and Eric MacMahon stood out in this second matchup. They showed that they know how the game is played at this level and were already making good decisions with the puck. This is huge.
Game three against the Slave Lake Thunder was a fast, back and forth event that ended 7–4 in favour of the Bears. No lack of excitement there.
There was a penalty shot that was stopped by a jubilant Severin Golla, Jasper’s second-year netminder, who is sharing the responsibility between the pipes again this year.
There were goals by Trenton Rea, Jax Kading and MacMahon, all for the first time as PeeWees. And there was McLeod again, solid in second half relief of Golla in the blue paint.
All in all, it was a solid tiering effort for this year’s version of the Jasper PeeWee Bears.
I’ll dust off the Ouija board and divine our league’s matchups for this year in a couple of weeks. Next week, though, I’ll highlight the adventures of the Jasper Atom Bears and their eye-opening tiering tournament in Whitecourt.
John Wilmshurst
Special to the Fitzhugh
