2011 Inline Hockey Junior Olympics
July 08, 2011
U14
The second day of the club tournament begins. The opponent is Revision Vanquish ’96 and game time is 10:30 in the morning. Team Alberta knows they are in for a tough game as they only defeated the Junior Revision team by 6 goals on opening day. It played out just the way they feared. Vanquish scored in the first 30 seconds of the game and never slowed down. The score was 4-0 at the 10 minute mark. Team Alberta had trouble even getting control of the puck from this dominant Revision team. With a minute to go in the first period, Revision scored again to make the score 8-0. The mercy rule was invoked. This was Alberta’s first loss in the round robin of the Club Tournament. Record was now 2-1.
Time for lunch and a rest and then back to the rink for the 3:45 pm game against the Tour Outcasts. The players realized that none of the games from this point on would be easy as they were facing AAA teams. Alberta came out strong and the two teams seemed to be evenly matched, with the action back and forth on the rink until the Outcasts finally scored. They scored again to bring the score to 2-0 at the end of the first period. Alberta took it to the other team at the beginning of the 2nd period with 2 quick goals. The game was tied and anyone’s to win. The Outcasts got the go ahead goal at the 8 minute mark of the 2nd. Team Alberta put everything they had into their play, but could not get the tying goal. Then the Outcasts shot one into the empty net in the last minute of play. Defeated again and now with a record of 2-2. This left the boys in 10th place in the standing. Their only hope now was to make it through the qualifying round if they were to advance to the Quarter finals.
U18
The team felt good coming of the Gold Medal win the day before. The coaches realized it would be tough getting mentally and physically prepared for the start of the round robin play of the Club tournament. The game was scheduled for 8:15 pm against the Alpha Dogs, a team from California.
It did not start out well, with the Alpha Dogs dominating play and appearing to score at will. The first 3 goals were scored in quick succession. Alberta did answer back with a power play goal to make it 3-1. That was to be the end of the Alberta attack. The Alpha Dogs took over from that point and totally dominated. The score was 9-1 part way through the 2nd period. Team Alberta 18U experienced their first mercy of the Junior Olympics.
