Manitoulin Island Selects!
I am always excited to hear of large efforts being made to see more kids get addi-tional chances to play the game they love. I have very little information available, however there is a Manitoulin Minor Hockey Association (MMHA) initiative for kids to try out for an Island selects team! The idea is to provide a bridge team be-tween house league and the Panthers rep teams. It is open to MMHA players to join with interested players from other teams for a unique opportunity to attend tourna-ments and play in exhibition games.
With such a new venture, the organization needs to get a quick survey of interest. The Mindemoya Thunder has offered to facilitate this using online forms to gauge how many possible players and bench staff would step up. With the logistics of some-thing this big to work, people should make their wishes known as soon as possible!
Players must be currently registered with a house league team on Manitoulin Is-land to participate. Importantly, your league-team precedence, and participation in the Select team will not affect your commitment to your own team. There will be fees for ice-time, but it sounds fun, register soon!
Panther Points!
The U15 Manitoulin Panthers had a busy week of hockey with three away games. On Thursday night, the team travelled to Massey to meet the North Shore Thunder-cats and clinched a 10-0 win! Saturday brought a closer game for the first place Pan-thers, with goals from Cohen Rajotte (assisted by Alexei Pelletier) and Brayden Armstrong (assisted by Max McLeod and Bryden Romaniuk) sealing the win for the Manitoulin against the second placed Sudbury Cubs. Sunday’s game in Blind River against the Thundercats ended the winning weekend with a score of 8-0 for the Panthers.
Next weekend brings a trip to the Soo Peewee Extravaganza Tournament for both the U13 and U15 squads, while the Lady Panthers stay at home to prepare for their upcoming play down games.
Silver-sticking, State-side!
Mindemoya’s Jack Bridgeman and his U16AA Copper Cliff Reds were in Toronto at the International Silverstick finals January 16-18. The Reds found themselves in a challenging pool, with games against the Ontario #1 AA side Vaughan Panthers, the Pennsylvania #1 AA Team Philadelphia and California AA #2 LA Jr Kings among their round-robin opponents.
Against Team Philadelphia Thursday night, a Reds defensemen attempted a hit in the first period that caught his opponent awkwardly. It was deemed a kneeing major and left the Copper Cliff side shorthanded for five minutes, and down one player for the remainder of that game plus two more. What followed was an exciting end to end match, but the Reds came up just short, falling 2-1. Next up Friday morning was the LA side. Still down the suspended player, the Reds rose to the occasion and played very well, but the hockey gods were not on their side and four posts stood in the way as they fell again by one, this time 3-2.
Friday night’s opponent was the Vaughan Panthers, and the desperate Reds bat-tled hard in what was likely their best performance of the season. A fast, clean, hard hitting Friday night battle saw the short-handed Reds fall by 1 goal yet again, this time 2-1. In the final round robin match Saturday night against the London Jr. Knights, the now fully rostered Reds came out flying. Jack got the team going, leading off with a pair of goals, and the rest of the team followed his lead as the Reds romped to a 7-0 win. The Reds finished with just the one win, but two teams from the Reds’ pool, Vaughan and Team Philadelphia, met in the final with team Philadelphia taking the championship, the first American side to do so in years. How good was the competition? Despite going 1 and 3 at the tournament, the Reds moved up two spots in the provincial rankings, where they now sit at #4! Let’s go, Jack!