The Canadian Tire Atom Rep team participated in the Bill
Batten Memorial Tournament in South Huron on the weekend and went undefeated to
bring home the A side Championship trophy.
The early Saturday morning wake-up call didn’t seem to affect the boys as they skated to an 8-4 win in their opening match against the Mount Forest Rams. Wilson Shipp opened the scoring just 50 seconds into this tilt, picking the puck up in the Mount Forest end and burying a low backhander. Just 11 seconds later, Nolan MacKinnon swept in off the left wing and deked the goalie to give the Kincardine boys a 2-0 lead. The first period onslaught would continue with both Carson Fletcher and Jordan Moulton bulging the twine. Assists went to Cam Renaud, Mac Beisel and Fletcher to end the first 4-0 Kinucks.
Two minutes into the second frame, Mount Forest cut into the Kincardine lead by scoring two goals in a span of two minutes to throw a bit of a scare into the Kincardine team. The local squad responded well and finished the second period with a 7-2 lead on goals by Moulton from Shipp and Cody MacLelland with two tallies just 40 seconds apart. On the second, Jordan Beisel took a big hit to get the puck up to MacLelland who went shelf to give the Kinucks a 7-2 lead heading into the third.
The Rams weren’t going to give up easily and actually came out and won the third period 2-1. The Kincardine goal was scored by Jordan Moulton who won a draw just outside his own blue-line, tapped the puck forward, deked a couple defenders and buried it up stairs where Norman Bates keeps his mother. The tournament scoring procedures allowed Mount Forest to score two points as each period a team won counted two points, winning the game counted four and a shutout an extra point. The four goals allowed by the Kincardine team was not ideal and the coaches told the Kinucks that they had to tighten up defensively if they wanted to continue their success.
The CTC boys certainly listened well as in a strange co-incidence, games two and three ended in identical 3-0 scores with first Gordie Reaume and then Ryan Tanner posting the shut-out victories. The whole team tightened up defensively but the defensive pairings of Mac Beisel/Mitch Pyke and Ben Voskamp/Darcy Scott were exemplary in their performance for the rest of the tourney. Game two saw the Kinucks face a team from Belmont with two goals from Jordan Moulton and one from Darcy Scott to seal the 3-0 win. Moulton’s first was on the power play and set up on a nice pass from Scott, his second an unassisted tally when he stole the puck at the Belmont blue-line and went high on the goalie. Scott’s was another top shelfer as he picked off a pass at his own blue-line, raced down the left wing and fired it home. Gordie Reaume’s shut-out play earned him the Mr. Hustle hard hat for this game as he made some great saves to secure the win.
Game three was another 3-0 victory, this time against South Huron on Sunday morning. Jordan Beisel was a dominant force in this game scoring the first two Kincardine goals on great plays. The first was on a head-man pass by Wilson Shipp which was just out of the reach of Beisel who then raced the goalie for the puck, beat him to it, deked him cleanly and slid the puck into the empty net. Beisel’s second goal also came in the first period after he made an end to end rush down the left boards and slid the puck right along the ice to fool the South Huron keeper as well as the referees who weren’t sure if it went in or not. Ryan Tanner played a solid game in net to keep the score at 2-0 until the 10 minute mark of the third when Jordan Moulton fired a wrist shot from the blue-line that bounced off a defender and in for a 3-0 final.
The stage was now set for the Championship match against an undefeated North Middlesex team that featured a couple of “twin towers” on defence who certainly didn’t intimidate the Kincardine team especially Nate Andrews who got the better of one of them later in the match. The Kincardine coaches urged the boys to play a team game, play a sound positional game and play with intensity and passion. The CTC Atom Kinucks completed this in spades and skated to a 5-1 victory and the A side championship. Wilson Shipp opened the scoring for the CTC team five and a half minutes in when he fired a glove side bullet from the left wing after a nice head’s up pass from Jordan Moulton. Shippy would continue his strong play in the second frame and this time it was his turn to set up Moulton. Shipp showed some great moves, got the puck to the net where Moulton picked up a rebound and slid it home along the ice. Just over a minute later, Moulton skated in on a two on one, set up by a Mac Beisel pass, and using his mate as a decoy, Moultsy deked the goalie and again slid the puck across the line. This gave the Kinucks a 3-0 lead, the most dangerous in the game according to Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Don Cherry but the Kincardine boys were having none of that and scored another before the end of the second to go ahead 4-0. Another great play by Wilson Shipp who tapped the puck past a defender at his own blue-line, raced the length of the ice and deked the North Middlesex goalie to just about seal the deal.
Heading into the third frame leading 4-0, the Kincardine squad knew the North Middlesex team would come out hard and apply the pressure to try and get back into this one. They did manage to score a singleton on the power play a couple of minutes into the third but that was all they could muster and with under a minute to play, Jordan Moulton buried an empty netter after some strong play by Cameron Renaud in his own end, to get the puck up to Moulton. Gordie Reaume got the start in net for the Kincardine Kinucks and made some outstanding glove saves throughout the match to ensure a Kincardine Championship. Ben Voskamp who had a solid weekend on defence played a strong game once again to earn the Mr Hustle Hard Hat.