Fraser Lake- Cheering fans packed the bleachers at Fraser Lake’s arena March 15-18 lending good spirit to their home team during this year’s Tier 4 Bantam Championship tournament.
Fraser Lake coach Craig LePoidevin said it was one of the biggest turn outs for a tournament in Fraser Lake.
“The championships were so well supported by the community and Village,” LePoidevin said. “It was such a great five days of hockey.”
Teams from Fraser Lake, Burns Lake, Houston, Whistler, Revelstoke and Windermere Valley took to the ice in some exciting head-on games.
Fraser Lake come up short their first three games where they lost to Burns Lake 7-4, to Windermere Valley 12-6 and Whistler 13-4.
“The first three games were tough ones but once there was no pressure our kids played much better,” LePoidevin said about his team who tied Revelstoke 5-5 in their fourth game.
For Fraser Lake’s fifth and final game, the crowds went absolutely wild waiving inflatable noise makers and banging on the stands. Kids from Fraser Lake Elementary were even brought down to support their home team wearing team colours or jerseys.
In the first period Houston got ahead by one but early in the second Fraser Lake tied it up. Not long after did Fraser Lake score again and pulled ahead by one, now in the lead. In the third period, Houston got a penalty shot but didn’t score on the 12-year-old pee-wee goalie Nick Stuart. Two other players on the Fraser Lake team were brought up from pee-wee to play in the tournament, Brayden Fitzgerald and Michele Ossi, who helped bring the bantam team to 12 players for the week. Houston tied the game with 1:58 minutes left in the third leaving the end result a tie knotted up at two.
The final game of the tournament between Whistler and Windermere Valley went back and forth for an exciting finale to the weekend. Windermere Valley got in some sticky penalty troubles and the game ended 9-5 for Whistler.
“If it wasn’t for all the penalties I think it would have been a closer game,” LePoidevin said.
The fair play award was given to Revelstoke whose team went into the school to sign autographs for the kids and do some activities with the classes.
BC ambulance paramedics were present but said there were no injuries except for a small broken wrist in the final game.