Season ends for Peewee Chinooks

Chinooks Captain Nelz Vance gets ready to fire one off

Chris Davis

Pincher Creek's Peewee Chinooks hosted the Lethbridge 2 Raiders for a faced paced semi-final playoff game on Sunday, March 2.

Having lost 6-3 in Lethbridge the day before, the Chinooks were needing to win by 4 to stay in contention, the Chinooks poured very ounce of energy into this game, which concluded with a 6-6 tie, hard earned for both sides. That ended the 2013/14 season for the Chinooks on a high note.  

Their Coach Brandon Yellow Wings was hopeful that an appeal to the Spud League over a technicality might result in one more game, but that possibility seems remote at best.

Repeated penalties cost the Chinooks a lot of their momentum in this game, as it has in some others. Chinooks penalties added up to 18 minutes, contrasted with a total of 5 minutes.

Both teams were moving their feet from the first whistle.  Lots of hustle out there, and lots of new chips in the arena paint.  Kaden Hooper of the Raiders scored first, at the 16:46 mark of the first period, assisted by Kyle Purvis.  1-0 Raiders.  Penalty season began on the Chinooks bench. Nelz Vance began warming up his powerful slapshot. Chinook Easton Fitzpatrick tied it 1-1  with a shorthanded goal at 6:03 remaining in the period, assisted by Ethan Grier.  The Raiders bounced ahead to 2-1 after a goal by Ethan Bourgeois, who was assisted by Jordan Sansuel and Riley Reeves.

 That's where it stood to the end of the first.

Kaden Hooper of the Raiders scored his second goal of the game by quickly catching and releasing a rebound a minute and five seconds into the second period.  You make your own luck, and Hooper kept his brain active for every chance. He was again assisted by Kyle Purvis.  3-1 and that necessary 4 point lead was getting further away for the Chinooks, who were nonetheless pouring it on shift after shift.  Chinook Trinity Tanner made good after several attempts at the 17:18 mark, assisted by Abi Cryderman and Ethan Grier.  3-2 Raiders at this point.

At the 13:55 mark Nelz Vance fired off a slapshot that did the job for the Chinooks, tying it 3-3. Sam Jordan picked up an assist on that play.  Midway through the period the Chinooks found themselves in a five on three position, with them being the three.  At 8:28 remaining in the period Raider Harley Alkerton scored on a powerplay, assisted by Tristen Paskuski and Trayton Tailfeathers, putting the Raiders ahead again, 4-3.  With 4:53 remaining Raider Apollo Hess scored to make it 5-3, assisted by Paskuski and Alkerton.

Going into the third the Chinooks were behind by 2 when they needed to be ahead by 4, an almost impossible gap to breach given the closely matched skills of these two teams.  Still they forged ahead, playing full-out, back and forth, a great peewee level competition.  The Raiders saw their lead increase to 6-3 after an unassisted goal by Apollo Hess, his second of the game, and the last Radiers goal of the game.  At the 16:27 mark Calim Yellow Face scored for the Chinooks, assisted by Ethan Grier and Abi Cryderman.  Grier's third and Cryderman's second assist of the game.  More Pincher penalties, solid tending on both sides, bringing us to 7:22 remaining when Trinity Tanner scored her second goal of the game, 4 on 4, unassisted.  With prospects of continuing in the playoffs almost certainly gone now, the Chinooks still poured it on, resulting in a goal by Michael Kleinhans-Kaupp, assisted by Grier (his 4th assist of the game), and a 6-6 tie at the buzzer.

Chinooks head coach Brandon Yellow Wings doesn't give up easily.  After the game he speculated on an appeal he said he filed with the Spud League that just might see the Chinooks granted another game.

"There's a glitch in the whole deal right now, because according to the rules when you have playoff games, you're supposed to have 15 minute breaks between each period, and in Lethbridge yesterday they didn't give us 15 minute break between first and second period, so we are contesting that right now with the league."

Back to the reality of the moment, Coach Yellow Wings was full of positive vibes about his team. "These guys realled played an awesome game, they played a good, they hustled.  We had to win this one by four goals.  Tough one.  We could have done it, but penalties played a big role.  Same thing as yesterday, penalties in the third period.  The thing that really kills our time is penalties.  They play good and they are awesome penalty killers, but there is only so much you can do against a strong team like this."

Looking back on the season, Yellow Wings summed up months of hard work.  "A really good season, we started out three different communities all crunched together.  We had to really get our bearings, get to know one another, and that really took quite a while.  All of the stronger players we had to pretty much hold them back.  All through the new year, they really started moulding it, hustling together, playing as a team."

"The bad thing is the undiciplined penalties.  You try to talk to them about staying out of the box, but a lot of these guys are pretty young, intense with their hockey game.  It's hard to take that heart out of them and make them settle down and put that energy into the right way."

"I can't say anything negative about any of them.  They made all the coaching staff proud.  It was a good one.  If we are done, we'll have a big party."

Michael and Rob
"Thank you, please come again."