The top female midget AAA hockey teams in the country have descended on Weyburn this week for the 2016 national championship Esso Cup tournament.
The host Weyburn Southern Range Gold Wings, which includes players from across southeastern Saskatchewan, have welcomed the Nova Scotia Female Midget AAA Hockey League’s champion Metro Boston Pizza, the Quebec female hockey development league’s winning Express du Richelieu, the Ontario Woman’s Hockey Association’s crowning Brantford Ice Cats, the Alberta Major Midget Female Hockey League’s top team in the Rocky Mountain Raiders and their Saskatchewan Female Midget AAA Hockey League (SFMAAAHL) rival Saskatoon Stars.
The six teams began round-robin action at Weyburn’s Crescent Point Place on Sunday afternoon and will continue to battle for a top-four position until tomorrow evening. These top-four teams will then compete in a semifinal playoff round on Friday to determine who will face off in the bronze and gold medal matchups on Saturday.
“Right now our plan is to get into the playoffs,” said Gold Wings head coach Chad Kish, whose team won the Esso Cup in 2014 in Hamilton, Ontario. “We want to finish top-four no matter what and let the chips fall where they may.”
While the five away clubs all earned a berth at the Esso Cup through winning the final game in their respective leagues, the Gold Wings lost three games to one in the SFMAAAHL semifinals in mid-March. The playoff defeat left the club with a 33-day wait between meaningful games, but their head coach said the team has kept busy during that time practising three to four times a week while also getting in a couple exhibition games earlier this month against a Radville club and a University of Regina Cougars alumni team.
Kish said the Stars, who went 22-4-2 in the SFMAAAHL regular season, appear to be the team to beat at the tournament, but the Gold Wings (15-9-3-1) do have an advantage in seeing them eight times during the year where they won two games and played them tough in the others. He said they are familiar with the Raiders (23-5-1-3) as well after scouting the team over the past season, but their knowledge about the eastern clubs is limited.
Kevin Ripplinger, an assistant coach with the Gold Wings, said they have been researching the Metro Boston Pizza (15-6-3), Express du Richelieu (19-3-2) and Ice Cats (17-2-3) online by following their games, roster stats and any written articles, but collecting live game footage has been difficult. However, the early and late afternoon games these teams have played during the first few days of the tournament have helped them understand their tendencies and that has been passed on to the Gold Wings players to develop a game plan.
After the first two days of play, the Gold Wings hold a 0-2 record suffering a 2-0 loss to the Stars on Sunday and a 4-2 defeat to the Ice Cats Monday evening. The Stars sit at 2-0, while the Metro Boston Pizza, Express du Richelieu and Ice Cats all hold an 1-1 record.
The Gold Wings have sold about 700 tournament ticket packages for the Esso Cup, indicating the community is excited for the great hockey that is on display this week, and seats are still available for walk-up purchases. Kish said the benefit of hosting a tournament of this magnitude not only helps the community financially in these tough economic times, but also generates interest in female hockey in Weyburn and its surrounding communities.
“It’s pretty exciting for the southeast to have something like this,” said Kish. “It’ll do (a lot) for female hockey in Weyburn and the southeast such as Estevan and all these areas. I think it will be good for female hockey and that’s why we wanted to get it here.”
