The Ridge Meadows Moose won the local juvenile holiday tournament over the weekend.
The Moose opened the tournament with a 3-2 loss to the Port Coquitlam Pirates, but followed up with five straight wins and a championship title.
Ridge Meadows downed Saanich 4-3, Vancouver 7-0, and Surrey 6-1. Goaltender Marshall Quinnell earned the shutout against Vancouver with 15 saves, and was named the game MVP.
That record earned them a berth in the semi-finals, and another shot at the Pirates. It was a tight game, and with about two minutes left PoCo scored to go up 3-2. Moose coach Derek Ferguson pulled his goaltender to press for the tie with an extra attacker.
PoCo took four shots at the empty net, resulting in four straight icing calls and faceoffs in their zone. On the fourth, the Moose won the draw, put the puck on net, and in the scramble centreman Zack Cummings scored the tying goal with just 29 seconds on the clock.
The game went to a shootout, where Nate Flavell scored the winner with a backhand spinarama move.
The game MVP was goaltender Clayton Arnott, who stopped all five PoCo players in the shootout. Through five tourney games he posted a 0.92 save percentage.
In the gold medal game, the Moose beat Langley 4-1. Cummings scored twice. He had six goals and three assists in the six games, and was the overall MVP.
The final game MVP was Jake Gobilot, who had two assists.
Other MVPs included Trevor Schmidt, with a hat trick against Surrey, and Dean Gilmore, with a goal in the first game against PoCo.
After an up-and-down year to date, coach Ferguson hopes the tournament has turned the Moose’s season around.
“We’ve started trending in the right direction,” he said. “Guys are starting to work hard again.”
Many minor hockey associations in B.C. can’t muster enough players to have a juvenile team, but Ridge Meadows has two, and they hosted the only juvenile tournament in B.C. this year.
The Ridge Meadows A2 team was supposed to be in a separate division from the A1 teams, but late cancellations meant all teams in the tournament were in one division. In tough, they lost to Surrey A2 by a score of 3-0, lost to silver medallist Langley 6-2, tied Saanich 2-2, and lost to Vancouver 10-2.