The Richmond-based U18 AAA Greater Vancouver Canadians (GVC) came up top in the C Pool Championship during the Mac's Tournament this past week
GVC, which trains out of the Richmond Oval, won against the Rink Kelowna team in a 4-3 game during the C Pool finals of the tournament held in Calgary.
The team's Eithan Grishin scored the first goal shortly into the first period, but Rink Kelowna followed suit with a goal of their own.
Two more goals were scored by both Lukas Tokic and Aidan Wildeman leading the team with 3-1 in the second period. GVC's Dylan Nazareth gained another goal for the team in the third period sealing the game with a 4-3 win for GVC in the tournament.
The team had a slow start in the first two games of Mac's Tournament where they lost 2-1 against Shawnigan Lake Academy and 8-6 to the Southside Athletic Club (SSAC) in both tight matches.
GVC was handed six penalties in a row against SSAC, including a 5-on-3 where SSAC scored three power-play goals and took the lead.
Despite GVC’s Kyle Eng scoring a short-handed goal to get the team to 6-5 during the game, the team couldn’t tie up the game with an open net opportunity for William Huo in the final minutes.
The team pushed forward into their third game against the Rink Winnipeg Hockey Academy and won with a score of 2-1 and moving onto their fourth game.
GVC played against defending Mac’s champions Calgary Buffaloes, also the Alberta League U18 AAA Playoff Champions.
The game went into overtime after a 2-2 deadlock where both teams played a 3-on-3 and GVC’s Grady Lenton scored the winning point moving the team to the C Pool semi-finals against the Northern Alberta Extreme (NAX) Hockey Academy.
GVC’s Grishin and Grady Lenton gave the team a 2-0 advantage in the first period against NAX, followed by Josh Hikida scoring another two points in the second period.
NAX scored a point on GVC just as the third period began, but GVC’s Caelan Mander scored another point with 5-1 win for them.
