Captain Tyson Lin scored twice and added one assist as the Vancouver Thunderbirds toppled the Edmonton NWZ Raiders 6-3 Sunday in the Amy Myles Memorial A final of the 41st annual Vernon Coca-Cola Invitational Pee Wee Hockey Tournament.
Jamie Ambrose, Ante Mustapic, Nick Varabioff and Quin Litherland supplied singles for the Thunderbirds, who finished the 8-team tournament at 5-0. Vancouver clipped Edmonton 4-3 in preliminary play Thursday night.
“We worked our asses off from start to finish tonight,” said Lin, a smooth centre who netted Vancouver’s first two goals. ”We did the simple things right and it worked for us. Our team’s been great all season. We all get along well; we’re like family. Edmonton’s a good team; we had two hard-fought games against them.'”
Trey Fix-Wolansky, Ryan Hughes and Briar Whyte answered for Edmonton, who gave up two goals in 1:35, late in the third period.
”We’re used to winning and we lost our second game of the tournament which is really disappointing because it came in the A final,”said Fix-Wolansky, a work of art on the art of work. ”We got into some penalty trouble, but I was really proud of our guys because they stepped it up when it mattered. Vancouver’s a really good team. They worked really hard and they showed a lot of grit.”’
The Thunderbirds were honoured with the Dan Oxnard Memorial Trophy as Most Sportsmanlike Team at the tourney banquet Saturday night at the Best Western Vernon Lodge. Retired NHLer Brent Gilchrist, a Vernon minor hockey graduate, addressed the players at the banquet.
The Ernie Kowal Memorial Trophy, for Top Coach, went to the South Delta Storm staff of Owen Pighin, Ryan Schram, a Vernon minor hockey grad, and Rob Bogress.
