David Miller | Special to the 51暗网
This past weekend the Jasper Atom Tier 4 Bears hosted a Tier 3 tournament along with a powerhouse Tier 2 team and boy was it an eye opener.
The Bears started off the tourney with a couple games on Friday.
Their first test was the team from Hinton and it was a back and forth battle from the get go, but Jasper quickly jumped out to a 3 to 1 first period lead with a couple of snipes from their little powerful forward Max Lescard.
The teams exchanged scoring chances in the second period and the Bears found themselves clinging to a 3 to 2 lead.
Hinton came out gunning in the third period and pumped four goals against the Bears who all looked a little shell-shocked.
The highlight for the Bears that period was the beautiful one timer goal from Matthew Derksen who hammered a sauce pass in the slot from his cousin Carson Miller, the end score was Hinton 6, Jasper 4.
Next up for the Bears was a dinner date that same night against the Swat Raptors from Edmonton.
Jasper quickly jumped up to a 1 to 0 lead with a goal just under two minutes in from Dustin Derksen but unfortunately that鈥檚 all the Bears could really muster up and the signs of playing an earlier game that day where really starting to show.
At the end of the day the Bears dropped the game 5 to 2 and were now winless in their own tournament.
The Bears were up early on Saturday with an 8 a.m. puck drop with the Thorsby Thunder.
With Carter 鈥淕love Hand鈥� Schmidt hitting the slopes, William 鈥淐ool as a Cucumber鈥� Routledge was counted on to play the full 60 minutes.
The Bears had a little more jump in their steps and were determined to play hard and try to come out of this game with a victory.
The Bears peppered the Thorsby goalie in the first period only to be turned away time and time again.
After 20 minutes the Bears were down 2 to 1.
In the second period the Bears鈥� luck was starting to turn, pucks that were being turned away in the first were starting to go in.
The Bears pumped four goals that period including a beautiful bar down goal from Ethan Gibbons and after 40 minutes the Bears had a 5 to 3 lead.
When the third period hit, Thorsby started to turn its game around and scored a couple of quick goals.
The game started to get intense not only for the players but for the fans in the crowd.
Jasper was being outplayed for most of the third but with a few amazing saves from the Jasper goalie, 鈥淏ig Willy,鈥� the Bears found them on the winning end of this heavyweight fight and they finally found their first win, beating Thorsby 7 to 6.
Jasper last game of the tournament was against the Tier 2 team from Edmonton, the Whitemud Whalers.
The Whalers were dominating the tournament scoring an average of 15 goals a game.
With Willy playing for his Novice team in Edson (he鈥檚 an underager, plays on three teams) Carter 鈥淕love Hand鈥� Schmitt had the job to shut down this powerhouse.
For the first five minutes of the game Jasper looked great and was holding its own, for a brief time it was a 1 to 1 game, thanks to a goal from Dustin Derksen and some big saves from Carter Schmidt, but it wasn鈥檛 too long after that that the wheels started to come off for Jasper.
The Whalers started playing like a top team from the city and completely dominated the poor Bears.
After everything was said and done the Bears skated off the ice losing 21 to 1.
The Bears travel to Edson this weekend for a tournament and are looking to keep their Tier 4 undefeated season alive.
Go Bears!
