The Huron-Perth Lakers AAA Minor Midget hockey club played their first tournament of the 2007/2008 hockey season this past weekend travelling to Ajax/Pickering to take on some of the larger market Toronto & area teams. The Lakers played 6 games in total reaching the finals on Sunday afternoon losing a very close, hard-fought game against The Toronto Young Nationals 1-0.
The Lakers played their first game on Friday, Sept 14 against the York-Simcoe Express and suffered a 6-4 loss. H/P scorers:
-Dean Klomp (St.Mary's), assisted by Darren Young (Innerkip)
-Haden Campbell (Stratford), assisted by Joel Bowman (Listowel)
-Haden Campbell, assisted by Connor Devereaux (Seaforth)
-Haden Campbell, assisted by Dean Klomp, Darren Young
Goalie: Baird Kelly (Stratford)
Game MVP: Haden Campbell
Second game of the day was played against the North Central Predators, playing to a 1-1 tie game. H/P scorer:
-Andrew Barton (Stratford), assisted by Patrick McLellan (Mitchell), Reid Oliver (Stratford)
Goalie: Greg Dodds (Wingham) - Greg is an affiliated player with the team playing in place of injured Shawn Gethke
Game MVP: Andrew Barton
Third game, played on Saturday, saw the Lakers beating the Guelph Storm by a score of 8-3. H/P scorers:
-Darren Young, assisted by Dean Klomp & Tyler Bryson (Exeter)
-Tyler Durst (Goderich), assisted by Connor Devereaux & Sean Consitt (Hensall)
-Darren Young, assisted by Dean Klomp
-Brandon Chaffe (Wingham), assisted by Sean Consitt & Derek MacDonald(St. Mary's)
-Haden Campbell, assisted by Dean Klomp & Darren Young
-Sean Consitt, assisted by Darren Young
-Patrick McLellan, assisted by Joel Bowman
-Sean Consitt, assisted by Brendan Childerley (Stratford) & Brandon Chaffe
Goalie: Baird Kelly
Game MVP: Sean Consitt
Fourth game, also on Saturday, resulted in a 2-0 win for the Lakers over the Clarington Toros. H/P scorers:
-Brendan Childerley, assisted by Brandon Chaffe & Tyler Bryson
-Brandon Chaffe, assisted by Sean Consitt & Tyler Bryson
Goalie: Greg Dodds (shutout)
Game MVP: Tyler Bryson
The semi-final (5th game) was played on Sunday morning against the Brampton Battalion with the Lakers earning a convincing win 5-0.
H/P scorers:
-Dean Klomp, assisted by Darren Young & Tyler Bryson
-Patrick McLellan, unassisted & shorthanded
-Dean Klomp, assisted by Darren Young & Haden Campbell
-Haden Campbell, assisted by Dean Klomp & Darren Young
-Darren Young, assisted by Dean Klomp & Reid Oliver
Goalie: Baird Kelly (shutout)
The final game on Sunday afternoon was played against the Toronto Young Nationals (coached by former Maple Leaf captain Rick Vaive) and was an evenly matched affair ending in a close 1-0 loss to the Toronto team
Goalie: Greg Dodds
Game MVP: Dean Klomp
Huron-Perth captain Tyler Bryson commented after the tournament:
"This was a good tournament to start our season to see how we compare to the teams outside of our league. We played well for the most part and the games that we lost, we beat ourselves. Our team needs to be more disciplined and cut down on our penalty totals - it wears our team down when we are constantly killing penalties and both losses were a result of power-play goals scored against us. Other than that, we represented ourselves very well and it was a good opportunity for our team to get some games in prior to our regular season starting."
The Huron-Perth Lakers AAA Minor Midgets open their Alliance regular season schedule this weekend with a game on Saturday, Sept 22 in Windsor and on Sunday, Sept 23 in Sun County.