OLDS — U15 Old Grizzlys head coach Jeremy McNeil is using a heartbreaking loss in their home tournament this past weekend as motivation for his players as they get back to regular league play and head north for another tournament.
Ten teams from Fort McMurray to Taber were entered in the tourney, down a bit from the usual 12, says Julie Johnston who organizes the tournament every year, along with Olds Grizzlys manager of business operations Kevin Watson.
The Grizzlys literally lost their home tournament final by an inch or two and had to settle for second place, after an own goal resulted in a 4-3 in overtime loss to Fort McMurray on Sunday.
“In overtime, it was three on three and just a kind of a weird bounce, where their guy was kind of taking the puck around the net. A couple of our players kind of stopped him from doing that,” McNeil said during an interview with the Albertan.
“One of my guys went to just clear the puck and accidentally whacked it towards our goalie and it kind of went off his blocker and under his arm.”
“Everyone was kind of stunned when it happened,” he added. “The ref came up to me after the game and said the puck crossed the line by maybe an inch, two inches, so just barely snuck in there.
“Everyone was kind of looking at each other like, ‘what the heck just happened?’ So a real unfortunate way for that game to end, so I felt bad for the boys.”
That wasn’t the only adverse event to occur during that game.
Two Grizzlys goals were called back.
One was disallowed when the referees said it was banged into the net via an alleged high stick. McNeil said he and his team didn’t see any such high stick.
A second Grizzlys goal was disallowed because a penalty was called at the same time the puck slid into the net. Again, McNeil said his team looked at that and saw no reason for a penalty.
Nonetheless, McNeil said, the Grizzlys have to learn from that experience as they get back into regular league action this Friday against a team from East Kootenay (Cranbrook).
After that, they head north to Strathcona for a weekend tournament that McNeil describes as a kind of showcase event, featuring some of the top U15AA teams in the province.
He believes they can beat basically any of those teams.
They were pretty dominant in their home tourney, which ran Jan. 2-5 at the Sportsplex.
They, beat the Calgary North Stars Gold team 6-2, shut out a the TRAC U15AA Wolverines from Whitecourt 6-0 and napalmed the 3 C’s Coyotes from Coronation 13-2 on their way to the final.
McNeil notes that a few weeks ago, the Grizzlys were bounced out of a tournament in Kamloops via a 3-2 loss at the hands of East Kootenay. However, they Grizzlys were down several players then. And he notes they’d beaten East Kootenay earlier in the season, so he’s pretty confident they can beat them again.
McNeil feels the same way regarding their chances in Strathcona this weekend.
“The boys have shown that they can compete with them. We’ve beaten them and I’m pretty confident that we can keep this rolling,” he said.
“I think they’ve built some momentum from the tournament, so I think they’ll kind of carry that into the second half of the season.”
McNeil says he’s using the sting of their overtime loss in their home tournament as extra motivation for the Grizzlys.
“Just kind of have that in the back of their minds for the rest of the year, that once we head into playoffs that that’s a feeling they won’t want to have again at the end of the year when we’re hopefully playing for a league championship or heading to provincials,” he said.
