Apr 17, 2012 | Reagan Yuke | 1804 views
Team White Finishes Season in Style!
Novice White had an awesome season, capped off with a 6-2 win in the final game of the Alliance Championships in Stratford.
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Novice White had an awesome season, capped off with a 6-2 win in the final game of the Alliance Championships in Stratford.
There were many highs, and some lows, throughout the year, but our last 3 weeks showed exactly what we were made of. Our team bought in to what our coaches had been preaching all season, and limited their opponents to an average of 7 shots per game over the last 10 games. During that stretch we averaged 4 goals for, with most of them being a result of amazing cross ice passes to wide open teammates. The championship weekend saw us score 19 goals in 4 games and give up only 20 shots and 6 goals. September tryouts seems so long ago.
Our team started strong with lopsided wins against weaker opponents. Unfortunately most goals were being scored through individual effort and as the season got tougher we were not able to score those goals as easily. We played a number of teams early on who played a “team” game and were defeated by those teams. Our turning point came in the 4th game of a home and home 4 game series against a AAA team from Amherst. After being outscored 18-3 in the first 3 games, Team White started sharing the puck and this resulted in a 3-3 tie. From then on we started to grow as a team and win our games as a team.
Leadership came from many players. Preston Smith always encouraging his teammates, Marko Sikic powering past opponents and ripping his shots into the net, The Moose, (Nick Moore) finding that being 6” taller than everyone else has its’ advantages and Lucas rediscovering his passion for hockey and finding another gear. Team White also found leadership from Jared Dewar “getting dirty” in the corners to get the puck, Olivia Buchanan with a new found speed to get to the net, Maddux Pepin skating both ways to help the team and Sam McFarlane and Cole Main speeding down their wings to get to the net. Our defensive corps of Luke Rochon, Maxim Wentzlaff, Jack Thomson, Logan Buchanan, Robert Fraser and Ben Cooper had a group effort with pushing the opponents to the outside and making smart choices to get the puck to our forwards. Goaltenders Chase Yuke and Michael Storms were there when we needed them to make the big stop.
A special thank-you to our outstanding coaching staff of Dave Thomson, Bryan Cawker, and Dave Henry, who brought their areas of expertise to our team. Their input was invaluable. Also to our manager, Reagan Yuke, for keeping our team, and especially our head coach, going in the right direction.
Our motto all year was “Team First” and it truly showed in Stratford with our amazing passing, our group effort to help in our end, and our short shifts to get our teammates on the ice.
Our final record was 38-14-4, but our truly amazing achievement was how our players came together at the end of the season to play Team White hockey.
Ian Dewar Head Coach
Kitchener Jr. Rangers Novice White