The Estevan A&S atom AA Bruins were the champions in the A final during the Fargo International Youth Hockey tournament.
They competed in the squirt B division from Feb. 20 to 22, winning all six games they played.
Estevan opened up the tournament Friday morning with a 4-0 win over Farmington, MN. In the evening the Bruins beat Eden Prairie 6-1, and that advanced them to the A bracket.
On Feb. 21, Estevan started the day with a 3-1 victory over the Detroit Lakes team. After the win they were matched up against Stillwater and the Bruins defeated them 6-2.
Even though the Bruins won by four goals, coach David Lavoie said it was a pretty close game for the majority of the contest. It wasn’t until toward the end of the game when Estevan opened up the scoring, he said.
On the final day of the tournament Estevan defeated Prior Lake 5-2, which advanced them to the A final.
Again the score was deceiving as Lavoie said that it was actually a close and competitive game. Once the Bruins went up 2-0 nothing, it remained that way for a while, according to Lavoie.
After they made it 3-0 then they started to pull away a bit.
The final against Sioux Falls was a nailbiter with Estevan prevailing 3-2 in triple overtime.
Lavoie said that Sioux Falls went up 1-0 in the first period, and then in the second Estevan tied it at one. Mason Fichter had the goal and Blayze Siebert and Kaden Chrest contributed with the assists.
By the third period, Sioux Falls led 2-1 and with eight minutes remaining, Siebert tied it up for Estevan. Fichter and Conner Terness had the assists.
In the first overtime Lavoie said it was a five-on-five, five minutes sudden death format. When it remained scoreless, they played four on four, for another five minutes.
In the third overtime they went to three-on-three hockey and when the clock expired the officials let the teams play until somebody scored. Kyler Gingras had the winning goal for Estevan.
By the end of the game Lavoie said that his team was “tuckered” out.
Lavoie said the tournament helped prepare his team for their league playoffs as the competition kept getting more challenging with each game.
The Bruins start the first round of the playoffs Feb. 28 at the Civic Auditorium.
