Juveniles finish strong
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A strong Beechey Juvenile Hockey League playoff run for the Tillsonburg Demaiter Real Estate Tornadoes ended Sunday with a 5-0 loss to Woolwich at the Kinsmen Memorial Arena.
“A really good, strong post-season,” said Demaiter Real Estate juvenile coach Craig Milton, noting their 8-3-1 playoff record going into Sunday’s semifinal. “The boys wanted it. Any time we started playing, I just knew they were more relaxed.”
“We did a lot better in our Beechey League playoffs,” said Christian Crossett. “We finally showed up for practices. We actually played hockey.”
“We came together as a team,” said Dylan Ralph, noting they have teammates from four different centres – Tillsonburg, Ingersoll, Aylmer and Langton. “It took a while, but…
“We were late bloomers,” added Ralph. “This was a building year.”
“I think we’ll have a better team next year,” said team captain Josh Soares.
Sunday’s game, however, was an aberration from their recent playoff form.
“I don’t know what happened – we didn’t change the lineup at all,” said Milton. “We kept running the same lines we did for all the post-season stuff. Woolwich was tough.”
With 18 skaters in the lineup Sunday, Tillsonburg was short-handed early taking back-to-back head contact penalties, which might have given the visitors some momentum. The Tornadoes finished with seven head-check penalties in total, including two double minors.
“When we turned it over in our own end, that’s when we had problems,” said Milton.
“Penalty trouble and we couldn’t get the puck out of our zone,” said forward Crossett.
“They were calling it tight,” said Soares. “The penalties kind of cost us.”
“We were playing aggressive, but…” said Ralph.
“The first one, he got hit,” noted Soares, recalling Ralph’s infraction 17 seconds into the game. “And he got a penalty for it. He was falling…”
Tillsonburg’s 2012-13 juvenile season, which concludes this weekend, was rated a success by the coaches going into their final tournament in Aylmer.
“It’s a good bunch of guys,” said Milton. “We had a lot of fun this year.”
Glanbrook, Tillsonburg’s OMHA nemesis, will be their opening opponent in Aylmer.
“We’re going to take it,” said Crossett, confident going into the rematch.
“Yeah, we could win the B side… or,” he added with a smile, “we can just take them (Glanbrook) out.”
“We tied them in the Silver Stick,” noted Soares.
“We were the first team to ‘not lose’ to them,” nodded Ralph.
“That was a tough series, and a tough break for us,” said Soares. “We were supposed to play Caledonia.”
“We had a few wins near the end of the season and it put us in a higher position than them (Caledonia),” said Ralph. “And higher than Tavistock, so we played Glanbrook.”