U11LL#1 brings home Silver from Earl Gaukel Memorial Tournament in St. George

Young squad ties two of its games with only minutes left on the clock

By Casandra Turnbull

There’s nothing more exciting for a young player than tournament hockey When your team is down 4-1 and battles back to tie the game and send it into double overtime in the finals, adrenaline runs at an all-time high.

The U11 Local League #1 team gave their fans lots of reasons to cheer earlier this month during the Earl Gaukel Memorial U11/U13 Tournament in St George The wolfpack drove down the road for the two-day tournament where they faced the Lambeth Lancers in the opening game. It was a hard- fought battle that ended in a 1-1 tie, thanks to a top corner shot fired off by Jace Allgood

Next up, in a game that was set to decide top seed in their pool, Paris took on the Tavistock Titans. They trailed 2-1 with 2:25 left on the clock when Jerome Burke buried the tying goal. Paris wasn’t done there, with 40 seconds left in the game, Levi Blake went bar down for the game winner, securing Paris’ hard earned 3-2 victory and sending the team to the finals.

On Sunday morning the team was hyped for their final game against tough league rivals, the Delhi Rockets Much like game 2 of the tournament, Paris was trailing 4-1 with just eight minutes left in the game The coaches called a time out and no one really knows what was said to light a fire under the offense, but it worked. Paris came out of that time out to score two quick goals, the first from the hot stick of Burke and the second from Nolan Gallant. Down just one goal, Blake once again came up clutch with the tying goal with only 1:04 left on the clock. The game went into sudden death, four-on-four player overtime. The goalies on both ends came up with big saves to send the game into double overtime, delivering five more minutes of riveting three-on-three hockey. The fans were standing throughout that period, loudly cheering for the Wolfpack but in the end, Delhi scored the game winner (after a controversial Paris goal that was called back)

All the coaches were extremely proud of the players and how hard they fought all weekend, never giving up and stretching out every second of the clock to their advantage. “Their hard back check and never give up mindset as they came together as a team was so impressive,” said coach Levi Blake