Oct 30, 2016 | jjewkes | 885 views
2016 Dave Clarke Novice Tournament
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
The Dave Clarke Novice tournament was the waking of a sleeping giant. In that our Novice rep team started out the tournament in a sleep like state and managed to get out of the first game with a 1-1 tie on Friday night.
Then Saturday rolled around and you could begin to see the giant stir.
Stratford poked and prodded the giant. Only squeaking out a 2-1 over our Express which many thought should have been a one all tie.
Our giant then came to life and put on a dominating performance defeating Belle River 2-0 giving a glimmer of hope to making the semi finals.
Now we had to actually root for Stratford to beat the hosting team Dorchester Dragons by 2 in the final game of the round robin to allow our Express to make the semis. As luck would have it Stratford went on to win 4-1 and now they have awoken the giant.
Our Express team came out on fire in the Semifinals against Petrolia Oilers and defeated them 3-1 sending the Express to the finals against Stratford once again.
Stratford had gone undefeated in the tournament so far and were planning on running our train off the track but that was not to be the way. A hotly contested match back and forth for 3 periods with no one being able to beat either netminder sending the battle into overtime.
Still with a 5 minute 4-4 battle the match could not be decided.
Then with only a shootout left one Stratford player was able to finally break through the fantastic net minding of our Ingersoll goal. Giving Stratford the 1-0 win.
We may have lost this battle but Stratford has woken our giant and I feel for the next teams that get in our way because we now know and the players know what they are capable of!
So let me warn you all now Beware of our Express train because if you get in the way you will be run over!!
"Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday."- Wilma Rudolph