2011 Inline Hockey Junior Olympics
July 09, 2011
U14
Game time 8:15am and the Colorado Reebok Wolverines held the fate of Team Alberta in their hands. A win for Alberta in the Qualifying round meant they could continue on in the playoffs. A loss and their tournament would be over. The teams were evenly matched with both having chances to score. The Wolverines played a patient game – hoping that Alberta would make a mistake – and they did. They broke down in their own end. This resulted in some breakaways for the Wolverines. Even the amazing goaltending of Liam Banks could not turn back all the shots. Colorado had a 3-1 lead heading into the 2nd period. Team Alberta fought back and did score one more goal. Still the final score was 4-2. Team Alberta 14U was out of the tournament.
U18
After the embarrassing loss yesterday, Team Alberta was looking for redemption. Their 9:45 am game was against the Revision Devil Dogs. Both teams came out strong, trading goals on a regular basis. The Devil Dogs came out ahead at the end of the 1st leading 4-3. At the 8 minute mark, Alberta got an odd man rush and defenseman JJ Beitel scored to make it a 5 all game. The Devil Dogs answered back with 2 quick goals and sealed Alberta’s fate. Final score 7-6 and Team Alberta was now 0-2 for the club tournament.
The next game was scheduled to start at 8:15pm and their opponent was the Rink Rat Mission. Alberta had not won a game since clinching the GOLD medal and was starting to get down on themselves. Rink Rat Mission had shown everyone that they were a strong favorite in the tournament so Alberta was going to have to dig deep in order to break their losing streak. After a disappointing first period and going into the second the RR Mission had a 5-2 lead. Team Alberta was starting to lose their focus and taking some bad penalties. The opponent kept their cool and capitalized on the situation, adding another 3 goals. Alberta realized that if they continued with this kind of play, they would most likely get mercied. The team calmed down and rebounded with 3 unanswered goals. The game ended with the Rink Rats winning 9-5.
The third game of the day and the team really needed to turn it around. A team meeting was called and a game plan was decided upon. Everything now rode on this game, would they have the skill needed to finally win one? Game time was 11:15pm against the Phoenix Jr. Dragons and the team was ready. 4 goals in the 1st period and another 4 goals in the 2nd set the stage for a win. Phoenix did muster 2 goals but the final score was a decisive 8-2 win for Team Alberta. This left the team sitting in 8th place, but it was good enough to get them a playoff game. They had got back some of their confidence and momentum and were in the hunt for another medal. Look out Tour Raw Steel!
