Peewee A1 are Russell Tournament Champions!

In dramatic fashion, the Peewee A1 Stittsville Fury captured the 2013 Fall Classic Peewee A House league tournament held Nov 15-17 in Russell!   It came down to a nail-biting shootout victory before the Stittsville Fury would be declared tournament champions. 

The team got off to a great start with a 10-1 win against South Stormont early Friday afternoon.  Saturday morning's game featured the Stittsville Fury against the host team from Russell, which ended in a 2-2 tie.  Prior to Stittsville's 3rd and final round robin game, Russell had finished their round robin play with a 2 win 1 tie record, leaving Stittsville requiring a victory to force a tie for the division lead.  Stittsville were up 3-2 over the Metcaffe Jets going into the 3rd but then really stepped it up to net 3 goals in the final period to seal the victory at 6-2.  Stittsville took 1st in their division over Russell, with the tie-breaker being determined by which team had the least amount of penalty minutes in round robin play. 

The Semi-finals were set with Perth, the leader of the other division, playing Russell and Stittsville playing West Carleton.  In the Sunday 3pm Semi-final Perth took down Russell to secure their place in the finals.  At 4pm, Stittsville took to the ice against West Carleton in a hard fought battle.   It was 4-3 for Stittsville late in the game when West Carleton pulled their goalie.  Joshua Dickson was battling hard near the defensive blue-line, gained puck possession, and quickly head-manned the puck to Kieran Balon who delivered the striking blow, netting an empty net goal to seal a 5-3 semi-final win and secure Stittsville's berth in the final. The championship game would feature the two remaining undefeated teams, Stittsville versus Perth. 

Perth started strong, scoring on the first shift and dominating the first period which ended with Perth ahead 1-0.  The second period was a fast-paced evenly played one, with Perth netting another goal to go up 2-0.  The third period was a heart-pounding affair, with great scoring chances and strong defensive play by both teams.  Late in the game, Stittsville had a lot of puck pressure deep in Perth's zone.  Brayden Pike took the puck to the net and assisted to Robert Banks who found the back of the net to get Stittville back in the game.  The Stittsville Fury felt the excitement and you could hear the kids on the bench saying "we can do this".  They stayed positive and and continued to pressure the opposition.  With less than 30 seconds to go, Stittsville finally got their goal-tender out of the net for a 6th attacker.  Enzo Kwindt stepped on the ice and rushed into the play.  With the whole team pushing hard, Perth had the puck and went for the clear, but a very tired Russell McKeage found the will for one last fore-check as he knocked the puck out of the air with his left hand.  As the puck hit the ice, he quickly delivered a tape to tape pass to Kwindt who was in full stride.  Kwindt split the defence and shot a rocket over the pad of the Perth goal-tender with 1.4 seconds on the clock to send the game to over-time. 

The 3-on-3 overtime was fast-paced and included a great scoring chance by both teams but would settle nothing.  This game would require a single round shoot-out.  Stittsville would win the coin toss and elected to shoot first.   Enzo Kwidnt was up for Stittsville.  He weaved over the blue line and pulled the puck back for a similar rocket shot as the one that sent the game to over-time, only this time he faked the shot, deked, then lifted a back-hand shot into the net over the goal-tender's pad.  You couldn't hear a pin drop as Perth raced in for their shoot-out shot.  Stittsville's goal-tender Julian Lachance edged out and timed the play as he backed in towards the goal.  Lachance stood square and waited out the shooter.  Perth shot for the five-hole but Lachance shut it down, making the save and securing the victory for Stittsville.  It was an electric atmosphere as the team pulled off an incredible tournament championship with such a dramatic 3-2 overtime victory! 

The coaching staff are so proud of not only the championship memories we all will have for years to come but of how well the boys represented our community both on and off the ice. 

Congratulations team!