Peewee B Cougars Advance to Blackburn Finals

Coming into the prestigious Blackburn Peewee B Tournament, none of the smart money was on the Cougars to do much of anything based on its lackluster performance in Char-Lan the week before. However, perhaps the flashes of brilliance the fans had been teased with in the regular season would manifest themselves in time for the matches.

The Cougars had drawn the host Stingers for the opening game. The home side was anticipating an easy skate against our boys, given each teams standing in league play. When the dust (ice shavings?) had settled, the Cougars had stunned the prognosticators with a hard fought 2-0 victory with goals in the third from Corey & Lily.

Next up, was the West End Beavers - the unknown quantity with the blue and yellow uniforms. With a combination of disciplined positional play and frequent passing (what dat?) the Beavers slapped the Cougars 5-2.

The goals scored in the second by Wolfgang & Corey were enough for us to win a period, if nothing else.

With a record of 1-1 going into the final game of the round robin, a decisive win was necessary to even have a chance of advancing to the playoffs as a wild card. After starting slow with a goal by Curtis in the first, the team poured it on in the final stanza with goals by Jacob, Steven (the nongoal-goal), Curtis & Corey to salt away a convincing 5-1 win over a depleted Orleans squad. Thus the waiting began.

On Sunday morning, the call came in - the team had made it in as the wild card.

The boys (apologies to Lily) faced off against Nepean in the semis.

With half of Barrhaven to cheer on the opposition, the rink was rockin'. Despite a strong edge in play, the Cougars could only manage a 1-0 lead after two frames. Nepean tied it up midway through the final period and the taste of a momentum shift was was palpable. The Cougars would not be denied, however, and with less than 2:00 to go Curtis, who had decided to put the team on his back and carry them along, scored his second of the match and the rest of the team reciprocated by hanging on for a thrilling 2-1 win and a place in the finals against the da-da-da-daaaaaa......West End Beavers.

The team not only had to battle the Beavers but some questionable officiating, according to some of the partisans. Regardless, the Beavers superior play proved once again too much for the Cougars to handle. The West End team cruised to victory and grabbed the hardware.

We will never speak of this game again this year.

West End aside, the Cougars demonstrated that when it wanted to play to its potential the results were inevitably positive. Its place in finals was well earned and for that they are congratulated for a job well done.

Ken Benson

Thanks!

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