The Home Hardware sponsored Kincardine Novice Kinucks Rep team embarked upon their seasons first tournament challenge, last weekend. Travelling to Tillsonburg, the kids knew that they’d be facing some tough opposition in a well established tournament.
Their opening game saw the Kinucks face the Strathroy Bluewater Hawks, who would beat Kincardine 6-1 in a scoreline that was maybe flattering to the Hawks. Kincardines consolation goal would come from Joshua Cuyler, ably assisted by Jordan MacDonald and Brody Lyndon. In truth, it was fairly obvious that these kids were getting used to a new hockey challenge and finding their feet, in this game. It should be said that goalie Cam Carney did perform admirably in between the pipes.
The next day would be an early start for the Kinucks with an 8 am face off. Up against the South Huron Sabres the Kinucks would take an early lead when Zak Fletcher skated over the blue line to fire the Kinucks ahead. Since he had just returned from vacation in Europe, maybe Fletcher was able to take advantage of the time difference and early start, while everybody else was still in early morning mode! That said, the team soon got moving, working well together they’d run out with a 3-1 victory, with the talented Trent Houghton claiming the next two goals. This game would give Jordan Wall a chance to show what he could do to support his team, in the Kinucks net.
A 4-3 victory over Wallaceburg would see the hard working Kinucks through to the next day and the knock out stages. All of the team members were worthy of a mention with solid D coming from Carnell, Drake and Graham, as well as hard forechecking from the likes Kaminski, Charbonneau and McQuillan.
The road would end at the semi final stages, where the Kinucks would lose 4-1 to the host team, the Tillsonburg Tornadoes. Again, a 4-1 scoreline was maybe not truly reflective of the overall game, but the Tornadoes did provide some stiff competition, in fairness to them. In what turned out to be a consolation goal for Kincardine, Jack Beddington would fire his goal in from the blue line with such ferocity, I thought I was watching a Bantam age group game for a split second!
Having personally experienced similar Novice Teams at the same stage, in years gone by, the one thing that was evident was some significant development for these kids, over the short duration of a weekend tournament. ‘This improvement certainly bodes well for the remainder of the season’ said Headcoach, Art Houghton.