While the New York Giants were securing their second world championship in four years on Super Bowl Sunday in Indianapolis, the Bantam Rep Blues were securing a championship of their own in Gibsons.
The Blues captured the league banner with an impressive 9-1 thrashing of Cloverdale at the Gibsons and Area Community Centre. The Blues now head into the playoffs on a big high with their first game being a single-game elimination.
Jalin Kimpton-Cueller was stellar between the pipes for the home team. Kyle Bergh led the scoring with five goals while Jake Savage and Keenan Flemming each fired home a pair.
The boys celebrated their winning season with pizza, cake and road hockey in the parking lot after the game.
Blues Blast 2012
Last weekend the Sunshine Coast was home to a peewee C tournament with 11 teams, coming from as far away as Abbotsford to the south and Powell River to the north.
For many of the families coming up for the tournament, it was their first time on the Sunshine Coast. Along with all the families visiting for the weekend came a great boom to local business supporting tourism, in what would normally be a very quiet winter weekend.
For at least one visiting team that stayed at the Blue Sky Motel, the Sunshine Coast hospitality was made even more memorable when the motel manager purchased a hockey net for the visitors to play road hockey.
Both the Sechelt and Gibsons arenas were used to host the 24 tournament games, beginning on Friday evening and wrapping up on Sunday afternoon. Thanks to the efforts of the many volunteers across the SCMHA in running the show, and especially Brenda Rowe for her brilliant tournament planning, it all came off without a hitch.
The only challenge presented was on Sunday morning when the Sechelt arena had to be evacuated at 7 a.m., due to a propane gas leak prior to the first game of the day. Everyone in the building, including kids who had to take their skates back off, headed outside to wait for the Fortis gas technician to be called in to sort out the problem. The 80 or so people in the parking lot took it all in stride, and when the green light was given to re-enter the arena, they all carried on with gearing up (albeit at a faster pace) for the game. The game started 45 minutes late, and by the time the late afternoon public skate took place, the schedule was only five minutes behind.
Although the Sunshine Coast teams did not make it to the finals, the kids from all teams had a great time on the Coast. The final game for contact ended with West Vancouver over Aldergrove 6-1, and the checking group had Cloverdale over the Surrey Bruins 5-1.
- With submitted files
