This one is going to be a novel!! Early in the hockey season
our team talked about goals meaning more than just scoring. At that time our team set individual and
group goals. We talked about how
individual goals in hockey such as working on passing or skating hard every
shift can lead to team goal accomplishment.
That week we set a team goal of winning the 2nd Annual
Mooretown tournament on home ice!
Mooretown Red would play 5 games in 3 days with teams coming from as far as Innisfill. This weekend of hockey was what true team work is about. Our team was down 2-0 in the first game against Point Edward then roared back in the 3rd period with 3 unanswered goals to take our first win of the tournament. (All goals with assists!)
With momentum on our side, Mooretown Red would go undefeated to the final game scoring a total of 27 goals for and only 10 against placing us in the #1 spot to face the #2 team of Point Edward.
Sunday, November 29th, 2:10 pm, Mooretown Red was 45 minutes away from our first team goal of winning gold becoming an accomplishment. Point Edward scouted our team and the word was out that all they had to do was stop #10 and they would win… Well, we all know Dylan is up to that challenge any day of the week and opened up the scoring 49 seconds into the game with an assist from Jacob Turner to give us an early 1 goal lead. Dylan couldn’t be kept down much longer burying another at 6:52 in the same period to put us up 2-0.
Point Edward had some plans of their own, scoring 2 goals in the second to tie the game up entering the third period. They scored a goal with 2 seconds to go in the period. Our team needed to pull it together and fast.
1 period left, 15 minutes to go, tied 2-2 and music blasting thru the whole arena, the atmosphere was perfect. Bells were ringing, fans screaming, and players were ready. And then it happened, at 10:46 in the third, the trio of passing that has combined for most goals on the team, Ian Blair, with a pass to Connor Murphy, then across the ice to a wide open Dylan Dupuis and we were ahead!!! The arena was as loud as the goal horn sounds and charge anthem provided by the score keepers. 39 seconds later Aden Bogaert put a pass on the tape of #14, Jace Dupuis stick for a beauty assist and we were ahead by 2. 4 minutes later Point Edward would get a goal to bring it to within 1. With little over a minute to go Point Edward would pull their goalie and put an extra attacker on the ice. To no surprise, Dylan would fire a shot from just over the red line into the empty net. Game over. Gold medal champions!!!!
All weekend, parents and relatives lined the stands cheering for their favourite numbers and the Red team as a whole. Our team would like to thank all of our hockey mom’s for cheering and supporting the players this weekend. They felt every emotion of their players on and off the ice, proving that the hockey mom is truly the hardest job on the team.
As a parent it was awesome seeing the players track the tournament chart upstairs and work together figuring out who we played next and other match ups in the tournament. Coaches and players talked strategy thru out the weekend and worked as a team.
Our team would like to thank Paul Gerrits and Gerry Murphy for rocking the house down, letting the players from both teams feel what it would be like to play with the sounds of real NHL games.
I’m finally done with this article. Mooretown Red coaching staff would like to thank all of the players for trying their hardest in this tournament. Goals can become accomplishments. See you in Oakridge!!