Continuing their hot streak from the recent Shamrocks Senior Ice Breaker Tournament, the Armstrong Shamrocks improved their undefeated pre-season play with a win and a tie in the sixth annual Archie Jack Memorial Ice Breaker Saturday.
The Junior Shamrocks opened with a comeback 7-5 victory over the Vernon Re/Max Tigers as the outstanding rookie combination of Owen Barker (3) and Brett Hawrys awoke to punish the Tigers with five goals between them.
“I am really impressed with our team’s focus and intensity and our skills on offence and defence should make us very competitive every night,” said Rocks’ coach Pat Nelson. “Our team is young but our speed and skills and floor sense match any veteran team and we just need to work hard every game as a team and we should have success like we did against Vernon.”
In their second game, the Rocks tied the defending junior B league champion Kamloops Venom 2-2 with great special teams leading to shorthanded goals by rookies Cam Nelson and Willy Hanley.
“We were a little frustrated by Kamloops’ chippy play in that game but we had to rise above that and focus on playing the game, our team can compete against anyone as long as we focus on our style, use our speed and skills and take advantage of our opponents’ mistakes,” said Nelson.
