Peewee Bears nab second at tourney in Edmonton
Big trip for small team is important to players' hockey development
Stewart Burnett
Northern News Services
Thursday, April 20, 2017
INUVIK
The Inuvik Bears peewee hockey team came second in a year-end tournament in Edmonton, but the trip was about more than hockey.
The Inuvik Bears gather for a photo. Back Row (left to right): Taylor Giffin (Coach), Cody Wainman, Tyren Kisoun, Corbin Dempster, Joel MacNabb-Lennie, Aiden Andre, Dwayne Raddi, Blaise Ovayuak, Seigna Hult-Griffin, Tyler Gordon-Bahr, Roger Israel (Coach). Front Row (left to right): Nathan Lennie, Brennan Sutton, Morgan Young, Telly Banksland-Stefure, Noah Crocker, Justin Stewart, Liam Cardinal, Christopher White, Jesse Israel. Team members not pictured: Fletcher Dares, Amber Ipana, Kyler Lennie, Bilal Altaher, Ajogu Abba. - photo courtesy of Roger Israel
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"The trip was for a hockey tournament, but overall it's so much more than that," said Taylor Giffin, one of the coaches of the team along with Roger Israel.
"They get together and get to bond with each other."
The tournament, held March 31 - April 2, saw the Inuvik Bears go 2-1 in round robin play, securing them a position in the finals, where they lost to the Grande Prairie Wireline Redneckz 6-3.
Because of Inuvik's small population, there is usually only one team per age level. This means the players play against each other all year.
"These opportunities outside of Inuvik to go and play other teams and other kids is really good for them," said Giffin.
"It was really good for them to come together as a team rather than individually playing against each other in Inuvik all the time."
The players get a lot of time practising their skills in Inuvik, so it's a great learning experience for them to get a chance to use those skills in games, said Giffin, adding that everybody played
well.
"Our goalies did a great job stopping the puck, our defense did a really good job keeping the opponents outside, pushing them outside and clearing the puck and our forwards were really moving the puck well when they got into the offensive zone," said Giffin.
"It was a good team effort all around and I was pretty pleased with how everybody performed and the way everybody improved."
The loss in the finals was unfortunate, but the team had a lot more to do while in Edmonton.
"They took it hard," said Giffin.
"It was upsetting for them, but after a few minutes they had smiles back on their face. Once we left the arena and got doing some other things, they quickly forgot about the results and were back to having a great time."
Outside of hockey, the team went to West Edmonton Mall, saw movies, ate out and went shopping.
"It's a whole experience that goes along with it," said Giffin.
"Hockey is what we're going down to do and we hope to play well when we're down there, but there's so much more to it when we bring a bunch of kids like that on an away tournament. They had a ton of fun."
The tournament marked the end of the year for hockey in Inuvik.
