Apr 02, 2023 | Bill Stretton | 197 views
U14 Select Red brings home the GOLD at the Alliance
The U14 Burlington Bulldogs Red Select team played in the 2023 Alliance House League Select Tournament this past weekend. The team brought home the GOLD medal with a 3-0 win over the Brantford 99ers.
The Bulldogs went 5-1 for the weekend tournament, posting an impressive 22 Goals For and only allowing 7 Goals Against in the 6 games.
On Friday, the Chedoke Express was the first game of the tournament and with 9-1 win to start, we were on our way. The next game on Friday was a hard fought 3-2 loss to the Kitchener Rangers.
On Saturday morning, the boys came back with an impressive 4-1 win over the Brantford 99ers. On Saturday night, they secured 2nd place in the standings with a comeback 3-2 win over the Lawfield Thunder. Trailing 2-0 at the end of the second the boys turned it on in the third, to complete the comeback win.
This energy carried through to the Sunday morning Semi-Final, with a 1-0 win over the Waterloo Wolves.
In securing a shutout game, the defense was able to hold strong, with the help off a crushing back check and forecheck from the forwards, which limited the scoring chances of a strong Waterloo team. When called on, goalie Ryan Minnie was calm and cool in stopping everything that came near the net.
Sunday afternoon championship game against the hometown team Brantford 99ers in the big rink at the Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre. Gabe Marino took a pass from Ben Stretton and went down and scored 39 seconds into the game for the eventual game winning goal. The Bulldogs crushing defensive play from the Waterloo game continued. Gabe tallied his second goal of the game in the 2nd period, and Josh Radojevic put the game away in the 3rd period giving the bulldogs the 3-0 win. Brantford was only able to muster 6 shots on another Ryan Minnie shutout win.
Congratulations to the Bulldogs players, the coaches, and the parents / supporters of the team. Thanks for being there all season, even those 6am Monday morning practices in the cold of winter. It was a great way to finish the season on a strong tournament win.