Jasper hosts girls Bantam tourny

The Jasper Grizzlies Bantam girls, a team of half peewee age and half first year bantam age, hosted their last scheduled hockey tournament last weekend with girls coming from Sexsmith, Grand Cache and Spruce Grove to play.

The Grizzlies didn’t fare well over the weekend winning just one of their three games in the tournament which put them through to the B Final played on Monday Feb. 16 against Grand Cache, which they won 4-1.

The girls owned the final, keeping their opponents goal-less until 8 minutes into the third period.  

Head coach Mike Dillon said the team had been working hard all season and that everybody had contributed to the win. “It was a good example of all the hard work that they put into practice and all the repetitive drills we did. They played a really good positional game, passing well and working on a lot of things that we worked on in practice.”

Playing a tight and “smart” defense the Jasperites kept the opposition to just seven shots on goal. “Our defense played really well all weekend, I was really impressed. I don’t think there was one breakaway on them, there was always somebody back.”

Goalscorers for the final were Emma Merilovich and Alison Karpo, scoring one each, and Jenny Dillon with two for the game.

The tournament was unlucky for the team’s captain Alexandra Bossio, who broke her ankle in the first period of Saturday afternoon’s game against Grand Cache, which they went on to win 5-4. Bossio’s expected to be on crutches for up to six weeks.

Playing without their key centre the girls were unable to get a break in their last game on Sunday against Sexsmith where they were kept goal-less until the last period and lost 1-4.

The other final was won by Sexsmith who beat Spruce Grove 4-2.

Due to the lack of girls playing hockey at this age level in the region the Grizzlies are without a league and are a tournament team instead. Dillon said this means it can take them a while to get into playing mode. 

“We’ve been in four tournaments this year and every tournament we’ve seen the same thing,” he said. “It takes a few games in the tournament to get up into a whole level of game mode. We start off not as organized as we’d like to be and usually it’s by our third or fourth game they’re coming on strong and really playing well.”