Ken Alexander photo
An upset at last weekend’s 100 Mile Minor Hockey Bantam House Tournament saw dark horse, Williams Lake Blackjacks, come from behind to take the tourney championship.
The five-team event, held at the South Cariboo Rec. Centre, saw the Blackjacks in fourth
place after round-robin play. It sent the team
into a semi-final game against Clearwater, the first-place round-robin squad, and the lakecity team won the berth into the finals.
Caroline Jeffrey, a tournament co-ordinator, says the Clearwater upset was a surprise.
“They were a very strong team. They had three wins and one loss after round robin.”
The result sent the Blackjacks into a lively tournament final with 100 Mile Mayvin Gas
and Heat.
100 Mile opened the scoring with a single-handed goal by Derik Popadinac four minutes into the period, but the Blackjacks answered back with two goals less than two minutes apart to take the lead.
It was short lived, as 100 Mile’s Ben Ryan, with an assist from Popadinac, snuck one in between the pipes to tie it at twos.
Within the first minute of the second period, Blackjacks scored again and then shored up their lead with another goal towards the end of the period.
Brandon Purcha scored what would be the last goal for 100 Mile just before the end of the period. He was assisted by Gab Dufour.
The third period saw one more Blackjack goal, which brought the final score to 5-3 for the visitors and put 100 Mile Mayvin in second place.
Clearwater finished the tournament in third place, followed by Williams Lake Royal Canadian Legion in fourth and 100 Mile Canadian 2 for 1 Pizza in fifth.
The tournament did not allow hitting and Jeffrey says it was a nice opportunity for the local house teams to get game experience with a variety of other teams.
All of the participants were given 100 Mile House Minor Hockey T-shirts and a free lunch at the concession stand, as gifts from the hockey club and tournament committee.
They also had a chance to get in on a raffle draw with prizes of a television, Xbox, laptop computer and Ipod touch.
100 Mile Bantam player Ryan Cross was winner of the laptop, and Rod Zacharias of Horse
Lake was winner of the television.
