Port Hardy’s Curtis McCarrick helped Team Sabres to a third-place finish with a 6-0 win over Team Bruins Sunday in the finals of the Male U-17 BC Cup hockey tournament in Salmon Arm.
The BC Cup, part of Hockey BC’s high-performance program, features 120 of the top U-17 players in the province, selected through a rigorous tryout process.
McCarrick, the 2011 co-player of the year for the North Island Eagles bantam rep team, scored two goals and an assist in the tournament as Team Sabres finished 4-2. The team’s only losses were one-goal decisions to Team Stars and Team Wild, who met in Sunday’s championship.
McCarrick scored the first two goals in Saturday’s 6-4 win over Team Canucks, which clinched his squad’s berth in the bronze-medal final.
The 16-year-old forward played the recently completed season for the Midget AAA North Island Silvertips, totaling eight goals and 12 assists in 34 contests.
Kennelly wraps up banner season
Jack Kennelly of Port Alice started his first season in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League by earning the league’s Rookie of the Month award. He ended it just a seasoned veteran, scoring seven playoff points — including an overtime game-winner — as the Weyburn Red Wings of Weyburn, Sask., reached the final round of the league playoffs before falling in six games to heavily favoured Humbolt last month.
Kennelly, a 20-year-old winger who graduated from North Island Secondary School in 2010, played in 56 games for the Red Wings last season, scoring 16 goals and 26 assists. He proved a big part in the success of a club expected to finish in the middle of the pack but which instead finished atop the league’s Sherwood Division and won two playoff series to gain the Canalta Cup finals.
It was the first finals appearance for Weyburn in eight years.
After starring for the North Island Eagles bantam rep team, Kennelly spent two seasons with the midget AAA Silvertips from 2007-09. He played the last two seasons with the Comox Valley Glacier Kings of the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League before moving east to Weyburn.
