Jan 22, 2017 | JJewkes | 1033 views
International Silver Stick finals
"The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved." - Samuel Smiles
By now all of our Ingersoll Novice Express team has returned from St.Clair Shores Michigan. One might think that returning home knocked out in the opening round we be a let down, but not our Express team.
Two things that we learned about this team. One we can and did shutdown and skate with every single player on the"current" southern county leaders Ayr Flames. Two that when adversity is thrown in our kids faces they step up and battle back harder than before.
Game one had our team face off against the Southern County and OMHA foes the Ayr Flames. The game was a fantastic battle that showed Ayr not only can we skate with them and shutdown their scoring prowess, we can also out play them physically. The match ended at a 0-0 tie and giving 1 point to each of the teams.
Game two had us up at the crack of dawn even if we couldn't see it through the fog that had set in over the area.
Our boys once again had a hard time with the early morning game and fought hard but were handed a 2-0 loss to the Mooretown JR. Flags. With tears in a lot of our players eyes as they left the ice coach Bill and his staff brought the players into the dressing room and guided their emotions back into check.
With still another game on hand and a small, ever so small glimmer of hope that we still had a chance. Our boys would have to win the final game of the day.
Game three had us pitted against the London Bandits, but with their flag bearing wear up and noise fans were no match for the desire in the hearts of our boys.
We battled hard on the boards and tossed the puck again and again at the Bandits goal. Finally we were able to get that dreaded blue puck over the goal line and put some points on the board. The battle ensued for all three periods and at the end our boys again rose to the occasion and won the match 3-1. With our job now done we had to look to the score board and watch the outcome of two following games.
The hockey gods would not be shining down on us this weekend and we watched Ayr, Mooretown, Simcoe (of all teams!) and Mt.Brydges move on to the semis.
As luck would have it Ayr and Mooretown would both win their semifinal matches and we have them lock horns in the finals. Sunday would then come to a end and would have Ayr take the title. Congratulations to the Ayr Flames enjoy your success and hard work because I hate to tell you it will be short lived!
To you our Searles Motor Products Novice Rep players you have made your Coaches, Parents, Fans and town so proud! You may not have come home with the trophy but you are #1 in our hearts!
Forgot to add that we had the best goals against average out of all the teams over the three games with only 3, that is right THREE goals against.
"You can lose a hundred battles, but as long as the war is not won, those battles mean nothing. Even if you haven't won a single battle in the war, but you manage to keep standing longer than your opponent does, you still come out victorious."