NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
SEAC Tiger captain Josiah Jackson fires the puck on net in the Tigers 8-0 win against the Northern Alberta Extreme in the Hockey Hounds tournament.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The South East Athletic Club Tigers are off to a historic start to the 48th annual Hockey Hounds U15 AAA Tournament.
The Tigers started the tournament 2-0 with an 8-0 win over the Northern Alberta Xtreme Friday morning – the best start by a Medicine Hat team since 2008, when they finished eighth.
Head coach Tyler Keen is aware of his team’s start and has told his players there’s more work to do.
“It’s a been a long time, I think, since this team has started the tournament 2-0. The message in the room right now is the work is not done yet,” Keen said. “We obviously like the result today but I think that there were a lot of little things that led to the result. It just wasn’t individuals, it was a team effort tonight.”
The 8-0 win follows up a 4-3 win over Prairie Storm to open the tournament Thursday. Friday’s blowout was driven by an unrelenting offence that poured 61 shots on an NAX team that couldn’t mount a counter attack. Tate Bowel had two of Tigers goals. Cole Fisher, Kieren Wyrostok, Ty Hynes, Colby Gulliver, Kayden Yeaman and Slade McFadzen all had one goal each.
Between the offence and the barrage of physical play, the Tigers have quickly become a contender at the tournament. Keen says being a hard team to play against is something they emphasize within the room.
“We emphasize to our guys to work as hard as they can every time they are on the ice,” Keen said. “Our forecheck, we want them to pursue the puck and smother teams. We did a really good job tracking back today and taking away their transitions and I think that was the difference.”
Tigers captain Josiah Jackson scored two of Medicine Hat’s goals in the opening win against the Storm and says it was nice to see his team continue to pour on the offence Friday.
“It feels good to get rewarded with a whole bunch of goals after the battle we had with Prairie Storm,” Jackson said.
Jackson says the offence and their win against NAX helped the team build confidence ahead of their matchup Friday night against West Vancouver and their other games in the tournament. That game against West Vancouver did not finish by press time.
It’s not just the offence that has put the Tigers ahead to start the tournament, physicality has played a big role as well. SEAC was the bigger of the two teams Friday morning and they used that to their advantage. The smaller NAX squad was not only getting outscored, but out-muscled in a lot of puck battles. It’s something Keen says has helped the Tigers this year.
“We definitely have a lot of guys that are naturally going to be physical players, they are big bodies,” he said. “But it definitely helps when you run into a team that maybe doesn’t challenge you as physically as some other teams. That being said, I thought we were pretty smart penalty wise, keeping our hands down and keeping it clean as best as we could.”
Fisher says big hits like the Tigers threw in Friday morning’s win helps get the team pumped up.
“You always love seeing a big hit, gets the boys going,” Fisher said.
The last time a Medicine Hat team won the tournament was 1999. The Tigers have a lot of games ahead of them and a chance to change that. Keen says his team’s work before the tournament prepared them for the start.
“You always hope, but I think a lot of the prep work that we did put us off on the right foot getting to that position but it’s not open,” Keen said. “We have to get to those quarter-finals on Saturday and Sunday, make sure that we are ready for those too.”
The Hockey Hounds tournament continues this weekend with early Saturday games at 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m. at the Kinplex, Hockey Hounds and Family Leisure Centre, followed by the semifinals at 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. in the Kinplex.
Tournament awards will be presented at 4 p.m. Saturday.
The final is slated for 12:30 p.m. Sunday at the Kinplex.
