Hey, everybody! Reader here, and today, I’m going to brag a little bit, as I have two new provincial champions in the family!
First, my nephew Hadley and his broomball team, the Odessa Bandits made the trip north to Debden, for the U16 Boys’ Provincials. After going 1-2 through the round-robin, dropping games to a pair of powerhouse teams – the Bruno Axemen and Debden Speedballs, the Bandits came through with a 1-0 win over the host team in the semifinals, and then they ground out a 1-0 win in their rematch in the final against Bruno, to claim the provincial title.
Then, over this past weekend, my niece Sofie and her ringette team, the Buffalo Plains U19 Blitz, made up of players from Balgonie, White City, Emerald Park and Pilot Butte, took part in provincials in Regina, with the majority of their games at the Co-Operators Centre.
They got off to a rough start Friday, falling to the Regina Predators, 5-4, before bouncing back to beat the Buffalo Plains Wild, 8-4 later in the day.
I was able to make the trip to the Queen City Saturday, and saw the Blitz fall 4-2 to the Regina Reign, before coming back to beat the Regina Ravens, 5-1.
Point of interest: The Ravens beat the Blitz in last year’s provincial final. Keep that in mind, as those two teams would cross paths later.
After waiting to see where the seedings would shake out, the Blitz would up seeded third, and would face the BP Wild against the 2-versus-3 semifinal. And the Blitz came out guns blazing, and took it to the Wild, winning 10-3, to advance to the final against… the Regina Ravens.
I was in the arena for the morning’s semifinal, but I watched the final from Balgonie with Sofie’s two little sisters. Thanks to the team’s manager, we were able to watch a livestream of the game on the South Saskatchewan Ringette YouTube page. If you like, you can watch the game right now!
In the end, the Blitz would not be denied, as they won by a score of 9-0, and Sofie sniped the final goal in the victory, capping off the win!
They’ve got a heck of a team, and they spend a lot of time together on the ice, having played in tournaments all over the place this season, including winning silver medals at the Golden Ring in Calgary and the Ed Horvath Invitational Tournament in Medicine Hat, along with gold medals at the Bridge Battle in Lethbridge and the Jim Benning Invitational in Regina. And now a provincial gold! Hopefully, they can add a league championship, too!
As you can tell, I’m super proud of all the kids, and it makes Uncle Craig happy seeing them do the things that make them happy and, doing awesome at it to boot! Proud Uncle Moments!!!
Congratulations!!!
