The St. Paul Canadiens hosted a Bantam boys hockey tournament this weekend, bringing in talent from across Alberta with teams from Kitscoty, Okotoks, Drayton Valley, Slave Lake, and High Prairie. By the end of the weekend, the boys would face off against Slave Lake, losing a hard-fought match by 4-2.
Head coach Aaron Christensen said he was proud of his team’s performance, noting, “We really competed hard, and there were many good teams at this tournament.”
St. Paul’s road to the finals came after finishing first in Pool A with two wins of 6 - 4 against Kitscoty and Okotoks, and no losses. After the games were completed to seed the teams in first, second and third places in each pool, the finals matchups were as follows: 1st Place in A final- St Paul vs. Slave Lake, 2nd Place in the B Final – High Prairie vs. Kitscoty, and 3rd place in the C Final - Drayton Valley vs. Okotoks.
Okotoks was able to best Drayton Valley to take home third place in the tournament while Kitscoty won the second place matchup against High Prairie.
In St. Paul’s first place matchup, Austin Leroux struck first for St. Paul only 1:38 seconds into the game. Tristan Lafreniere added one more for St. Paul with 6:25 left and St. Paul left the first period with a 2-0 lead over Slave Lake.
Five minutes into the second period, the Slave Lake Thunder broke St. Paul’s shutout with a point shot that was tipped in front on the net. Less than two minutes later, the Thunder struck again with a nearly identical tipped shot to tie the game. The score remained tied heading into the third period. At the midway point of the third period, Slave Lake scored their third goal in a row to take the lead.
Unfortunately, St. Paul was not able to tie the game with the extra attacker and the game was put away with an empty net goal for Slave Lake with 20 seconds left, making the final score 4-2.
“We moved the puck very well but unfortunately today we didn’t have the bounces going on our way or much finish and that was the difference in the game,” Christensen said of the match against Slave Lake. “It was a very even final; Slave Lake got a good bounce and that was all it took to win it in a game that even.”
