Hockey excitement continues at Kings Sports Centre thanks to the youth playoffs.
The Logic Youth Roller Hockey League playoffs is the latest competition under way after last week’s Cherry Cup championship and inter-school hockey tournament. Action starts this Wednesday 8 June at 5pm with the title match for the Peewee (13 and under) division. The semi-finals took place over the weekend featuring the fifth seed Stuarts Panthers facing the Appleby Sharks while the Vampt Oilers battled the KPMG Senators.
Stuarts have had an interesting playoff run so far. After placing last in the regular season the side took down the Conyers Canucks 8-6 in the opening round. Their semi-final opponent Appleby had a bye and dominated the Peewee division stats, leading the league in most goals for and least goals against. Both Vampt and KPMG meanwhile rely on above average goalies in Dylan Bostock and Ben Williams.
Over in the Atom (10U) division, the top seed Eats Blazers face the WestStar Wild in the title game. Eats escaped a tense semi-final game via a 4-3 victory over the fourth seed Animal House Penguins. WestStar meanwhile needed a shoot-out to advance past the Cedrus Capitals. Wild coach Chris Wilson of the Wild stated it was a hard-fought victory.
“Every one of the kids brought their “A game” and played to the best of their ability,” Wilson said. “Our goalie, Zach Alpert, was on fire. The defensive pairings of Caitlyn Harrington with Morgan Bottomleigh and Davin Gallagher with Matthew Wilkins played a huge part too. If we play like we did it’ll be an exciting final to watch and we stand an excellent chance of taking the top prize.”
The Novice (8U) division title will be up for grabs between the Walkers Blue Iguanas and XN Financial Flames. Walkers took down the dms Bruins 6-2 in the semis while the Flames downed the fourth seed Dart Ducks 5-4. Blue Iguanas coach Scott Hughes states the team is ready to face the Flames after a resounding display against dms.
“It was a huge win for the kids,” Hughes said. “I could definitely tell right from our warm-up that our older kids were primed and ready to go, which seemed to rub off on our younger players. Our A line played their typical game with Nathan Hughes and Cassidy Amesbury providing the offensive push. Props also go to Nick McCallum for registering a hat trick and Jake Serpell got three assists.
“Ben Somerville plays in net for us and has done a great job. He’s really tough to beat when the puck gets close to our net. We’re not surprised to see the Flames given that they were the number one team in the regular season. After the first round win, the Blue Iguanas are very confident going into the finals. We’ve beat them before and we believe that we can do it again.”
Finally the Mites developmental programme wrapped up last Saturday. The league’s youngest division of four and five year-olds have shown tremendous progress since early February, with several players graduating to the Novice group this coming September.
For more information email Kings Sports Centre Athletic Director Ray Singh at [email protected].
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