Jan 13, 2020 | Peter Lirusso | 1029 views
ATOM AE Fight Hard to Second Place finish in Peterborough
Over this past weekend the CW ATOM AE team participated in the 62nd annual Liftlock Atom Hockey tournament (http://liftlockatomhockey.ca ).
Friday saw the boys open up the tournament facing off against the Mooretown Jr. Flags, winning the game 8 - 2!
Saturday morning came early with a game at 7:30 am against the Lindsay Muskies, unfortunately the Fusion came up short in a 4-2 loss.
Later the pressure was on with the fellas needing a win, plus high goal differential to move on the the semi's (along with some help from a couple other teams). The boys took care of business with a solid 6-0 win against the Newcastle Stars. Then it was off to lunch and waiting to hear if we moved on. Thankfully with the best goal differential among the teams in the hunt for the Wildcard spot in the semi's coupled with a miracle tie in another division we moved on to the Semi's, only to face those fish again!
After an extremely hard fought battle which saw the boys come back from a 2-1 deficit in the third period and take the game 3-2 it was on to the finals!
Sunday morning facing off at 7 am against the Ennismore Eagles for the Championship! The first period saw the Fusion play almost in it's entirety in the Eagles end, ending the period up 1-0.
In the second the eagles scored and the momentum changed, entering the third it was tied 1-1.
In the third with under 6 minutes remaining the Eagles struck again however (as they had done all weekend) there was no quit in the Fusion line up and with less than 4 minutes they scored to tie the game and force OT.
Unfortunately the 5 min OT solved nothing and it was off to a shoot out.
In the shoot out the Fusion came up short converting on only 1 of 3 chances while the Eagles made their first 2 attempts.
This last tournament of the year couldn't have come at a better time for the team, while we have entered into the OMHA Pre-lims the tournament allowed for the entire line-up to feel the pressures of "must win" hockey and I am proud of each an every player on the team for playing their roles and putting the team first!
I hope all players look back on this experience in the positive, while we came up a little short we faced some adversity and moved forward. Also I would like to thank each player for the way you representing CW Minor Hockey on and off the ice!
I'd also like to thank the Coaching Staff and of course the Parents for helping to make the tournament a success - it isn't easy to have to roll out of bed at 5 am on back to back days and driving all over the place to various rinks!
We are primed for a good run in the playoffs and I'm excited to get things going again this Saturday against Milton.
Coach Pete