Atom White LL, U11, 2016-2017 (Brock Minor Hockey Association)

It was great to see everyone today at the awards banquet. the last 3 weeks have felt like 3 months. Congratulations to Callum More for Most Improved Player Award. Although there were many candidates for this award, the coaching staff believed his ability to control the game from the blueline was a huge part of our team's success in the second half and the playoffs. Congratulations also to Aron Barnett for winning Most Sportsman-like. Aron was always positive and smiling on and off the ice regardless of the score, and never complained when he was asked to play another position.

Being close does count in other things. Unfortunately, our Cinderella story did not have the fairy tail ending that we had all hoped for as we put up a good fight in a 5-0 loss in the championship final. The game was much closer than the score would indicate - and this was echoed in my post game conversation with the opposing coach. We both remembered back to the first game of the season when they laid a beating on us winning 12-1. We improved exponentially over the last 5+ months and forced that team to a final winner take all game.

After losing the opening game of our best of 3 series with Lindsay Black in Beaverton on March 7th, it seemed that game 3 would not be needed. After all, we had not even earned as much as a single point in 2 seasons against this team. But those statistics are now part of history as our team evened the series at 1-1 in prototypical Brock White style - we came from behind to win 4-3!  

I am truly in awe of how much this team has improved since Christmas. With just 1 game to determine which team would challenge Lindsay Black for the championship, our team did it just as we had done many times this season - coming from behind. The first period saw our side with much of the play in the Kawartha zone and several scoring chances but nothing on the scoreboard to show for it.

Today's game was Atom White's best game of the year! We dominated this game from start to finish. We limited the opposition to just a few shots on goal and only 1 or 2 real chances - one of which was a diving save with the catching glove. Liam "The Iron Curtain" Flood kicked aside every shot that came his way to earn his first career shutout! The referees also played a part in this one as they called a total of 15 minor penalties and keeping the game from getting out of hand. Bryden Parliament got the party started on a nice end to end rush just 39 seconds in to give us the lead.