The Legion Ladies Auxiliary Pee Wee B Tyees took the short drive (many times) over the past few days down to Comox to participate in the Chiefs Christmas break tournament.
Our crew continues their journey of improvement as every game was a close one and they were finally able to vanquish an old foe for the first time. Close one goal losses to North Island and Racquet Club opened the round robin portion.
Strong starts and challenging finishes continued as the story for our mighty fish. North Island jumped ahead by 2, but the Tyees roared back to tie it by the 3rd period. Kobe Koizumi, Matt Block and Tyson Olsen were particularly effective in getting to the back of the North Island net. Tyler Jochimski with a one timer from the point finished the scoring for the orange and black. Big Cole Dumont was a physical force all game along the boards. In game two, it was Wyatt Murray and Loopsie Underhill who had the Tyees out front early. Matt Block had two beauty ‘bar down’ goals in a row and the Big Chinooks seemed to be cruising with a 4-2 lead.
Unfortunately, Racquet Club had other ideas and roared back to take a 5-4 victory. Strong defensive play from Aidan Willis and Ty McNeilly kept things close though.
Game three was a classic that had fans in the stands on their feet throughout.
The Tyees had played Port Alberni tough all year, but did not have a win against our rivals for salmon capital of the world. Ryan Newton and Brett Ruehlen put their workboots on for this one as Ryan potted a pair of beauties and Brett capped off a solo end to end rush with a laser wrister. This time the film had a different ending as a thrilling finish ended in a Tyee victory.
Bailey Demuth stood tall in goal, Ryan Deagle was a force on the blueline and the hustle of Kiera Arsenault and Alex Movold was evident throughout the affair. The win meant a rematch with Port Alberni later in the day and our mighty fish were clearly tiring in their third game of the day.
Despite the efforts of Cam Vaughn in net and Tyler Wingert buzzing the Alberni goal, Port Alberni prevailed in a close fought battle that saw the Tyees come back from a 3 goal deficit to briefly take the lead, before running out of fuel.
At the close of the tournament, coach Andrew McNeilly stated: “I challenged the team before the third game to not win for the sake of winning, but to do it for their pride. They did indeed win as a result of a great group effort and their pride was on full display during and after the game...and I as a coach am very proud of them.”