After months of provincial competition, the 2018 14U Western National Championship played this weekend in Edmonton with eight boys and eight girls’ teams competing against one another for the title of Western National Champion.
The 2018 Western National Championships featured teams from all four western provinces. Teams qualified for the Finals through their performance in the three western provincial 14U leagues that took place annually in British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba/Saskatchewan. In 2018, the top three girls and boys’ teams from B.C. and Alberta, and the top two teams from Manitoba/Saskatchewan qualified for the finals. All games this weekend were thrilling to watch as many of these teams have never faced each other before and had to adapt on the fly.
The tournament began with a round robin tournament. Both the girls’ and boys’ divisions featured two groups of four teams each, with each teams playing one game against the other teams in their pool. The top two teams from each pool then advanced to the semi-finals.
During the round robin play the Prairie Boys team played hard during the round robin but found themselves coming up short with having to fight their way out of the 7/8 position. But they regrouped and with some strong defensive and offensive plays from Cameron Gillingham, the Prairie team won in a shoot out against Team Manitoba and found themselves in the semi-finals against Calgary Destroyers. The Prairie boys had never played this team before so they anticipated a tough game, but the Prairie boys game out strong and with four goals in the first quarter. The Destroyers came back in the second quarter with four goals of their own but the Prairie boys scored two more goals to keep the lead. The third quarter saw five goals from the boys and they held their lead straight through to the finish were they came out on top with a 13-8 win and a fifth place finish overall for the team in Western Canada
The Prairie Girls round robin play found them going into the semi-finals and playing the Calgary Renegades for the bronze medal. The game was tight in the first quarter as boy the Prairie Girls and Renegades kept the pressure on and only scored one goal. The second quarter proved to be just as defensive with no goals scored by either team and the great goaltending work by Josie Andrist playing a big factor. The third quarter the girls scored one goal to take the lead but in the fourth quarter the Renegades came back scoring two goals and the Prairie girls scoring one. This left the girls in a shoot out position and unfortunately the Renegades outshot them and took the win with a 6-4 finish.
