For at least the second straight year the City of Yorkton was represented at the Crowchild Challenge, one of the top-ranked Pee Wee and Atom hockey tournaments in Alberta and Saskatchewan this side of the country. For at least the second straight year, they went undefeated through the opening round.
Yorkton advanced to the final game of the tournament where they squared off against Brandon, said Chad Korczak, head coach of the Terriers.
"We were sluggish," he said following the loss. They didn't get off to the greatest start in the tournament, either he said, despite jumping out to a 4-0.
"We didn't play great," but on Saturday, he said "we got a lot better. The kids were excited." He told the paper that after having come out of their South East Minor Hockey League with the championship title, and the fact that they were still out playing hockey in early April, none of the coaching were expecting a whole lot going into the second period of that final game of the tournament. Starting on March 31st and ending on April 3, the Crowchild Hockey Association Pee Wee 1 and Atom 1 hockey teams hosted the 29th Annual Crowchild Challenge Hockey Tournament, Calgary's largest AA minor hockey tournament for 9-12 year olds. Thirty-two teams from across Canada and the United States have competed in the Crowchild Challenge, which is one of the longest standing and largest winter season tournaments in Western Canada. Yorkton advanced to the finals and came up short against the team from Brandon.
During the tournament's 29-year history it has featured several of today's NHL stars including Jarome Iginla, Mike Comrie, and Jay Bouwmeester.
Yorkton played well through most of the tournament, but heading into the second period of the championship game trailing by a 4-1 count, Korczak told the paper, he thought it was probably best to let the kids play out the rest of their 2010-11 season and maybe just have some fun with it. "Everybody's winding down," he noted, adding that "they (Brandon) played better then we did. Korczak said Brandon got off to a better start in the game, taking an early 2-0 lead, they were awarded a penalty shot, which "Budzy stopped", referring to goaltender Nolan Budz. "It was the last game of the year," he closed.
Also competing are the Blackfoot Chiefs, Springbank, Brandon, the Crowchild Blackhawks, Grande Prairie and Kamloops, which made up Pool 'A'. Pool 'B' has the AA Xerox Yorkton Terriers, Bow River, Beaumont, Trails West and Shaw Meadows. Korczak said the team was probably going to be in for a rough start as the kids had not played any games over the past two weeks or so.
Boy was he wrong.
Four games from Friday evening to Saturday at around 7 p.m., the Terriers blew everybody away, reaching goal totals of as many as 11 per game.
On Friday morning, they beat Bow River, 3-1. Later that same day, they edged Beaumont, 4-3. On Saturday morning, they beat Trail West 7-2 and then lay down a beating on Shaw Meadows later on Saturday afternoon, 11-2.
The tournament is sanctioned by the Minor Hockey Association of Calgary and is entirely organized by team parents and volunteers. In addition, some of our neightbours to the south are also putting up some pretty good competition. Teams from as far away as Texas have played. Also, California, Missouri and Tennessee have competed as well.
