Seafair Midget C2 hockey team certainly made the most of its trip down south last week to participate at Seattle Junior Hockey Association’s Arctic Blast in Lynnwood.
Playing a whopping five games over a 24 hour period, Seafair took tournament honours with a 3-1 victory over North Delta in the championship game. The locals played a pair of preliminary contests on Saturday, then concluded round-robin play at 7 a.m. Sunday morning. A semi-final win over Burnaby set the stage for the gold medal tilt. The event brought many Lower Mainland teams down I-5 for the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, to the point where Seafair ended up playing against only one American opponent.
“It really was a great team effort, especially with that schedule,” said Seafair assistant Chris Wong who had to oversee all the coaching duties for the tournament. "The boys kept their shifts short and knew what they had to do. It really was a job well done."
The final was against a physical North Delta team that has one of the top records in Pacific Coast Amateur Hockey’s Fraser Valley League. Seafair handled to aggressively play with poise and secured victory in the tight-checking affair with an empty goal.
“Regardless if we won or not, it was a great weekend for the kids and the parents to get a chance to bond,” added Wong. “Our team manager Rhonda Barish derserves a lot of credit for putting the trip together, booking the hotel and organizing everything.”
