Team Ontario heads to finals shooting for gold

BRITISH COLUMBIA—The British Columbia home team bent to the incredible performance by Ontario’s men’s team in the decisive game May 5 to see who would move forward into the final round on May 6.

“That was an awesome team effort to keep B.C. off the scoresheet,” commented Team Ontario General Manager Wes Marsden, of the 5-0 score. “Earlier in the week we lost to B.C. and it was all because of penalties. That was our demise. But this game was about staying disciplined. It took a lot of patience, but we came into today to play our game, and that’s what happened.”

Stats from the game show just how disciplined. Ontario took four penalties in the first period while B.C. took six. Period two saw two penalties for Ontario and only one from B.C., but it was the third period where B.C. chose to spend time in the penalty box instead of near the Ontario net racking up 5 penalties compared to Ontario’s one—a game total of 7 for Ontario and 12 for B.C.

But it was just staying out of the penalty box that helped the Ontario team.

“I’m so proud of the guys,” stated Marsden. “When they came here they were really into their shell. To see them come so far, and really gel as a team, they are really together as a group. I’m super proud of them.”

The team, which is a composite from across Ontario, had one practice a day in advance of the tournament and just got better with every game. This decisive game saw six players either score or assist. Defenseman Shadow Rueben buried one in the first period one second before the clock ended. Assisting were Brayden Crow and Greg Trudeau Paquet. Only 27 seconds into the second period, forward Quinton Loon-Stewardson scored, assisted by Brayden Crow and Shadow Rueben. At 13:09 Greg Trudeau-Paquet scored with Loon-Stewardson on the assist.

At 10:13 in period three, Loon-Stewardson scored with his brother Eli Loon-Stewardson and Shadow Rueben on the assist. The final goal was scored by Emile Cyr at 12:10, and assisted by Preston Whitehead-Bobyk. Miikah Keeshig was in net, shutting out all 25 shots, while B.C.’s Chad Cromar stopped 23 and let in five great shots from Ontario.