The Grand Forks peewee rep hockey team fell short of its goal of winning a home tournament this past weekend at Grand Forks Arena, settling for third place.
The team started off tournament play well enough defeating the Tier 3 Summerland Jets by a final of 4-1 on Friday and followed that up with a pair of blow-out wins on Saturday – the peewee reps defeated the Tier 3 Columbia Valley Rockies 13-2 in the morning and then beat the Tier 4 Cranbrook Ice 14-0 that same evening.
But according to coach Darryl Turner, the team thought things would be just as easy in a knockout round game against Semiahmoo on Sunday, which ended in a 4-2 loss for the Grand Forks team.
“We started out really well and we cruised through the round robin portion,” Turner said. “Good teams have to learn how to win and you learn a lot more from a loss. Our team went in thinking, expecting to win that (Semiahmoo) game and I think we fell behind. We dominated the second half but dug too big of a hole and couldn’t come back.”
Turner gave credit to Semiahmoo saying it was a good team that knew how to clog up the neutral zone.
“They knew how to get their sticks in the passing lanes, deflect the shots,” he said.
However, Turner said that it’s better to lose now as opposed to during the upcoming Peewee Tier 4 B.C. Hockey Championships in Grand Forks in mid-March.
“We can learn from this an keep building and moving forward; it’s a good learning experience,” Turner explained. “We just talked about this in the dressing room and said, ‘Remember this. Learn from this.’ Experience is everything and if you can learn from that and just key and get ready and not give anyone a free pass, we’ll be OK. We just need to remember these ones we let slip away and the season’s full of peaks and valleys and hopefully this will jump-start us and have us in the right direction.”
The Tier 4 B.C. Hockey Championships will go from March 17 to 22 at Grand Forks Arena and volunteers are still needed. You can contact Turner at darryl.turner@sd51.bc.ca for more information on the tournament or to lend a hand.