The Oceanside Peewee Generals may not have ruled the scoreline in their playoff final Wednesday, but they did get a boost to their bottom line while hosting the three-day Winter Classic Hockey Tournament at Oceanside Place.
After getting off to a strong start with wins in their first two games Monday, the peewee Generals wrapped up play with a 6-0 loss to Saanich in Wednesday’s bronze-medal final.
The tourney, which followed a first-time atom development tournament in November, was the first hosted by the peewee rep program in several years and served as a major fundraiser for the program.
“I know they been pushing hard to get tournaments back in Parksville, and this is the first year in a very long time that we’ve actually been able to pull rep tournaments,” peewee coach Charles MacDonald said. “Now, once we get these teams in and people were here, then hopefully next year when we put it on, it’s ‘Yeah, last year was pretty good, so let’s come back.’”
Oceanside’s Brody Simpson, centre, is slowed by a pair of Saanich defenders on a charge to the net during Wednesday’s bronze-medal final in the Peewee Winter Classic hockey tournament at Oceanside Place. — Image credit: J.R. Rardon/PQB NEWS
First-time tournament director Kristine Harvey said the club is committed to resuming the tournament next year. She said she got help from fellow peewee parent Shelly Stouffer, who ran the Oceanside Atom Development Tournament at Oceanside Place in November.
“It’s a huge fundraiser,” said Harvey. “It’ll obviously benefit all of our players to offset their fees throughout the year. And it will help families along the way with expenses and things like that.”
The tournament was bolstered by local businesses that donated prizes for a substantial raffle table.
“It’s great support from the community,” said MacDonald. “Fundraising is difficult, and these (tournaments) raise a lot of money for the teams.”
The Campbell River Tyees outlasted Alberni Valley 3-2 in a shootout to win an exciting gold-medal final to wrap up the six-team tournament.
The Oceanside peewees suffered their second straight loss to Saanich in the bronze final. They met in round-robin play Tuesday afternoon in a much closer affair, which was tied 2-2 in the third period before the visitors took the lead on a power-play goal and capped a 4-2 win with an empty-netter in the final 18 seconds.
“We tried to get them back in the bronze medal game (Wednesday),” said Brodie Simpson, who led the peewees with six goals and four assists in their five tournament games. “It was a tough loss. We just couldn’t get the puck, couldn’t win the battles. We just didn’t work hard enough.”
The Generals started round-robin play Monday in fine form, romping past Kerry Park 13-1 as eight different players scored. Denen Scott led the way with a hat trick and Simpson had a five-point game with two goals and three assists. Sam Davidson added two goals and Kaden Wentzell, Mack Sanderson, Jordan Harvey, Drew Foreman, Evan Obodzinski and Dallas Earl each found the net in the win.
The Generals followed with a 3-2 win over Powell River, with Simpson scoring twice and assisting on the third goal, a score by Scott that Easton Sandberg also assisted on.
Oceanside’s Kaden Wentzell fires a shot as a Saanich defender trails the play during Wednesday’s bronze-medal final. — Image credit: J.R. Rardon/PQB
“We hadn’t beaten Powell River yet this year, so that was a good win,” said MacDonald. “We played really good hockey. If we could have pulled out even a tie in the Campbell River game, we could have been playing for gold.”
Their third game, against a Campbell River team playing a tier higher, was tied 2-2 until the visiting Tyees scored in the final two minutes of play to eke out a 3-2 victory. Simpson and Scott had Oceanside’s two goals, with Davidson collecting an assist.
Simpson said Campbell River probably took the Generals lightly when the teams met in a pre-season exhibition contest, which Oceanside won, 8-1.
“They knew we were gonna be a tougher team and came out strong,” Simpson said. “We played our best game, they played their best game and they beat us. We matched up really well.”
Oceanside then closed out the round-robin schedule with Tuesday’s 4-2 loss to Saanich. Simpson scored the team’s first goal, and Caleb Armitage turned a breakaway into a score that tied the game 2-2 at 12:15 of the second period.
The bronze medal rematch was scoreless until midway through the second period, when Saanich got on the board on a point-blank rebound shot just after successfully killing off a penalty. Late in the period, the floodgates opened, with the Braves getting back-to-back scores at 17:25 and 17:52 of the second.
“You get down a couple and you’re second-guessing everything,” MacDonald said of his team. “Everyone’s trying really hard and we’re not focusing our energy on doing the right things; everyone’s trying to do too much. Give (Saanich) credit; they came out ready to play.”
