Tourney faces challenges common in Canadian
amateur sport
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| Brooklyn Gemmill raises the Esso Cup for the Ice Cats. |
WEYBURN, Sask. – In a lot of ways, a community like Weyburn
is the perfect place to hold a tournament like the Esso Cup, but that doesn’t mean
the event will be void of difficulties.
On Saturday, the national female midget AAA hockey championship
tournament wrapped up with the Brantford Ice Cats romping to a 10-3 victory in
the gold medal game against the Express du Richelieu. The championship game shown
before a national audience on TSN didn’t do justice to how close the on ice competition
was between the six teams in attendance.
The four clubs that made the playoff round all sported 3-2
records. Out of the 19 games played over seven days, nine were decided by one
goal and six had two-goal spreads.
In preliminary round play, the Express downed the Ice Cats
5-4 in a match that required a tiebreaking shootout. All six contests over the
final two days of preliminary round play were decided by one goal, which showed
how the competitive level was cracked upwards when it got to crunch time.
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| Floriane Dion (#7) tries to hold off Nicole Kelly (#17). |
Away from the game action itself, the community of Weyburn
did have a sense of excitement about the tourney. In midsize large cities like
Saskatoon and Regina and definitely in big centres like Calgary, the Esso Cup
would be lost among a maze of other events be it sports or entertainment. In a
centre like Weyburn that is just shy of a population figure of 11,000, the Esso
Cup was a big deal.
As soon as an out of towner goes to check into a hotel, a
staff member would automatically ask out of curiosity if you were there for
hockey.
When you arrived at Crescent Point Place, the staffers from
Hockey Canada and the tournament committee were cordial and inviting. It felt
like everything ran smoothly. You pretty much wanted to be at the rink.
Unfortunately when you looked into the stands, the great
organization and friendly atmosphere didn’t translate into butts in the seats
except for when the host Weyburn Southern Range Gold Wings took the ice.
That right there also shows a pitfall of amateur sport in
Canada. In order for a big national championship tournament to be termed a
great success or a spectacular success, it often revolves around the
performance of the host team. That shows a weakness in the culture of sports in
Canada.
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| Captain Bailee Bourassa and the Gold Wings are loved in Weyburn. |
In some years, even the prestigious Memorial Cup tournament,
which crowns the champion of major junior hockey, isn’t immune to that fact.
With that said, you don’t have to be in Weyburn long to find
out there is a lot of love for the Gold Wings. There are signs up in various
parts of the town showing support for the club and the local Boston Pizza
outlet has auctioned off autographed Gold Wings jerseys for the odd fundraiser.
You could even bid for a cool looking Gold Wings mini fridge at the Esso Cup’s
silent auction.
The players are always out and about rocking their team
jackets. Captain Bailee Bourassa is also like a little celebrity, and that
likely started from the fact she scored the winning goal that delivered the
Gold Wings a 2-1 Esso Cup championship victory over the Edmonton Thunder in
2014 out in Stoney Creek, Ont.
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| Madi Solie is well-known in Weyburn. |
The Gold Wings had a solid 18-9-1 regular season record in
the Saskatchewan Female Midget AAA Hockey League, and they fell in an SFMAAAHL
semifinal series to the Saskatoon Stars. The Stars went on to win league and
Western regional titles to qualify for the Esso Cup.
Had the Gold Wings made the Esso Cup’s playoff round and
found a way to qualify for the tournament final, TSN’s audience would have
likely seen a raucous crowd for the championship game. The hosts lost three
straight two-goal decisions to open the tournament before rallying to win two
straight extra time games to finish at 2-3. The Gold Wings showed a lot of
heart marching on after Bourassa broke her arm in their second tournament game
and was lost for the rest of the event.
In a perfect world, the championship game would have been
close and compelling like the majority of the tournament was. After 20 minutes,
it appeared the title game would be intriguing after Emilie Lavoie scored twice
to give the Express a 2-1 lead. The Ice Cats had a slim 9-7 edge in shots on
goal.
No one could have seen the blowout that was about to develop
and blowouts will happen in sports even in contests between teams are supposed
to be closely matched. The Ice Cats exploded for five goals in the second
period to take a 6-2 advantage. The lead would grow to 9-2 by the 7:03 mark of
the third before the final 10-3 outcome was cemented.
Nicole Kelly, Kayla Bailey and Brooklyn Gemmill all had
two-goal nights for the Ice Cats, while Paige Rynne, Lauren Martin, Taylor
Trussler and Chenelle Caron-Godon had singles. Emma Verbruggen made 16 stops to
earn the win in goal.
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| Chenelle Caron-Godon (#5) had the final goal in the Ice Cats Esso Cup win. |
When the dust settled, the Ice Cats had to be credited for
establishing a new tournament record for goals in a championship game at 10 and
for showing off impressive offensive skill.
On the media front, the Esso Cup was largely ignored. The biggest
media presence came from Hockey Canada’s staff itself, which created the video,
still pictures and written content for the organization’s website. There was no
national media presence to cover the title game.
There seemed to be no out of province media members at the
event, but there were some local outlets from surrounding areas that stopped in
and did the odd feature.
The lack of media was likely great for the staffers that
produced the website for Hockey Canada, because they had the run of doing
whatever they wanted for features. What one forgets is that only people
interested in the sport of hockey or the Esso Cup itself would check out the
Hockey Canada site.
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| The Ice Cats take a victory lap with the Esso Cup. |
Weyburn put together a good Esso Cup, and the effort was
there to make things great and even spectacular. The uncontrollable forces kept
the event from having a more lofty status.
It would be nice if major amateur sport championship
tournaments in Canada could have everything fall in place more often to allow
them to reach their potential. Unfortunately, that likely won’t happen any time
soon.
Besides the awards, the officials that worked the tournament
semifinal game on Friday between the Raiders and Express have to be commended
for making a tough clutch and correct call in overtime. With the teams locked
in a 3-3 tie, the Raiders looked like they netted the winning goal, when centre
Breanne Trotter’s dump in from outside the blue-line went into the Express net.
Ice Cats' Kelly cleans up on awards
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| Nicole Kelly won three Esso Cup awards. |
Besides winning the Esso Cup, Ice Cats standout Nicole Kelly cleaned up on the tournament’s major awards.
The Esso Cup tournament awards were handed out Friday before
the start of the playoff round. Kelly took home honours as the tournament’s top
forward, most valuable player and top scorer. The underage standout, who turned 15 in February, netted
nine goals and six assists in seven tournament games. In the Esso Cup
championship game, Kelly had two assists to go along with her two goals.
Ice Cats rearguard Paige Cohoon picked up honours as the
tournament’s top defender. Kate Lloyd of the De Winton, Alta., based Rocky
Mountain Raiders was named the top goaltender, and winger Leonie Philbert of
the Express took home honours as the top goaltender.
Besides handing out those honours, Gold Wings grad Toni Ross
was named the winner of the Isobel Gathorne-Hardy Award for her leadership and
commitment to the game. Ross recently wrapped up her post-secondary career playing
goal for the University of Regina Cougars women’s team.
Ross was a first team Canada West all-star this past season
with the Cougars, and she was also an academic all-Canadian. The Verwood,
Sask., product posted a 17-6-1 record, a 1.93 goals against average, a .929
save percentage and three shutouts with the Cougars this past season.
She coaches at goaltender instruction academies in Regina
and the Cougars Cubs’ hockey program. Ross is also active with the Canadian
Cancer Society’s Relay for Life and Big Sisters program in Regina.
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| Paige Cohoon was named the top defender at the Esso Cup. |
Referee Michelle Stapleton and linesmen Jessa Drury and
Andrea Kosloski had a conference correctly called the goal back due to a
delayed offside call. It would have been easy to have let the goal stand as the
Raiders were celebrating and one of the Express players made a quiet protest.
When the game resumed, the Express pulled out a 4-3 victory
after a tiebreaking shootout.
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