The North Bay BEST H2O Midget B Ice Boltz hockey team is having a season to remember.
They captured the championship in their home tournament in November and in December went to the finals of the Guelph Gryphons tournament, losing a heart-breaker in OT. This past weekend the team visited La Belle Province to compete in the Midget A division of the Coupe Montreal Girls Tournament.
After a slow start on Friday evening, a tie against the Mistral Laurentides, The Boltz played excellent hockey for the rest of the weekend. The girls used a devastating fore-check, excellent communication, and put a wave of pucks toward the opposition’s net to put tallies in the win column. With their play early Saturday, the girls earned a bye to the semi-final and a free evening.
So, a number of the families took in the Montreal Canadiens OT win over the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Ice Boltz winning ways continued when assistant coach Mike King and parent Dean Evans chipped in on tickets to claim the 50/50 draw, the largest pot of the year at the Bell Centre.
It was an indication of more good things to come.
The team continued to dominate on Sunday. In the semi-final they put three pucks past a very stingy hometown Canadiennes de Montreal goaltender. Goal scorers were Taylor Ash and Torah Buttigieg both deflecting in point shots and Lorraine Hatch sniping one from the high slot; Gabrielle Russo chalked up her second shutout of the event.
In the final, facing the Mistral again, the team played to win. Fast and physical, The Boltz were first to every puck, passing tape-to-tape and again wore the opposition goalie to exhaustion with a barrage of rubber missiles. The girls thought they scored a goal mid-way through the first, but it was disallowed. This woke something up in the team and they took their play to a whole new level. Then, in the third period, after killing a 5 on 3 penalty, Jamey Couch ripped a huge snapshot off the goalie and Taylor Evans batted the rebound out of mid-air to tweak the twine. Evans celebrated with an inspiring roar to further motivate the team! Shortly after, Couch got a second assist, when Abbey Robarts caught the opposition on the change.
Couch sprung Robarts with a long pass for a partial break-away, and Abbey ripped a snapshot, in stride, that went bar down to put the team up by two. Gabrielle Clouâtre finished off the scoring with a beauty wrist shot from the point beating the Mistral goalie, glove side.
Ice Boltz goalie Gabrielle Russo did not see a whole lot of action in the game, but being in Montreal, made a few timely big saves, a la Ken Dryden, to preserve the shutout and win. Gabby’s biggest save of the tournament came on the 5 on 3 penalty kill, where she stopped a 2-on-0, throwing up the paddle of her goalie stick to knock away a sure laser of a goal.
The girls were presented their medals and banner by Canadian Women’s Hockey Team member Ann Sophie Bettez. Congratulations to: Gabrielle Russo, Abbey Robarts, Hannah Conrad, Isabelle Champagne, Camryn Walker, Jenna Couch, Lorraine Hatch, Madelaine Hall-Paradis, Taylor Ash, Jamey Couch, Gabrielle Clouâtre, Molly Pitkethly, Emma Lindeman, Maddy Southall, Torah Buttigieg, Eryn Long and Taylor Evans.
