I can remember my first hockey tournament like it was last
weekend. I was part of the Markham
Waxers U10 R/S team. The team was a late
assembly of kids from a cobbled together tryout back when the Covid 19 virus
stifled the planet. I think my dad and
another kid named Giuliano’s father coached the team. They didn’t really know what they were doing
but us kids sure did. I remember some of
our season was cancelled due to the lockdown but when things started to open
up, we all looked forward to our first tournament, the “March to Halton Hills
Thunder Tournament, Mar. 11th - 13th 2022”.
I got to take Friday off school which was worth the price of admission right there. We played our first game that afternoon against the Whitby Wildcats and beat them 6-1. Then a second game that same day against the host team, the Halton Hills Thunder. We had never played them before and they were certainly tough. Of course we won though, it was 3-2.
Then we got to stay in a hotel -- it was great. We all played mini stick hockey all night. Funny thing, I noticed that many of the parents seemed to be very thirsty, I guess it was from watching all the hockey games. The next day we had one more tournament game to establish our ranking and then a semi-final game. At that point we were the only unbeaten team in the bunch and we kept going. We beat Stouffville 3-1 in a hard fought game to clinch #1 seed. Later in the day we played Stouffville again for the semi-final as they had finished fourth in the ranking. I remember all our parents in the crowd chanting “Let’s go Waxers”. It was so loud it was hard to hear the referee’s whistle. You called it, we won 5-0 and our goalie Daniel was our game MVP. This maintained our top spot and a place in Sundays Final game.
Sunday morning after my house league game, we raced back to Georgetown for the Championship game. The Halton Hills Thunder ranked 2nd and were our competitors. They opened the scoring early in the first. We answered back but they scored another to end the 1st period with us trailing by one. Toward the end of the second, Halton scored another: 3-1 for them. Early in the third period we scored as the battle continued. Toward the end of the period still down one goal, the contest heightened as the Thunder took a couple of penalties. As we tried, the clock was quickly winding down. At .50 seconds remaining, the coaches I referred to earlier, pulled our goalie from the net. I could see it my teammates faces – none of them were giving up. All of us elevated our game to full power like we had practiced so many times. Then it happened with .13 seconds on the clock, Carson managed one past their netminder to tie the game.
This got us into a 4 on 4 sudden death overtime period that lasted a while before Jacob found the back of the net to win the tournament championship! It was sweet! To us it felt like winning the Stanley Cup. To this day, it feels like it was just last week and I can honestly say, it remains by far, the greatest hockey accomplishment of every player on that great team.
Well next weekend we have another tournament in Bradford so who knows?
Dane Edwards #44