14u Peewee Recap by Raine
MISSISSAUGA - A bittersweet day at the East Coast NARCh Finals, as this is the day where the road has finally come to an end. The last day of the event brought arguably the best hockey yet, as the Peewee division would be the final youth division to wrap up, and it did not disappoint.
To start off the final day at the Hershey Centre, the Peewee Platinum division still had to play their semi-final games. In the first game (in an All-Canadian game), the undefeated Rattlers would convincingly beat the Tour Snipers by a score 6-0. The other semi-final game would be the one to remember.
Following a 3-1 victory against them in their final round robin game, the Tour RoadRunners would yet again play the Halton Alkali Coyotes to determine who would play the Rattlers in the championship. Just like their round robin game, the two teams would be very defensive in the way they approached one another, as they would constantly wait for an odd-man opportunity.
Considering the talent on both sides, the game would go into Overtime and following a bad line change, RoadRunners' Dom Triosi (who scored the OT winner in the Bronze Medal game in the Bantam Gold division) would score a beautiful goal glove side to bring his team to the Championship game.
Fast forward an hour later and the great hockey would continue, this time in the Peewee Gold Championship. The Halton Alkali Coyotes would challenge the San Jose Inline Sharks for the Gold Medal. Both teams took down the top two seeds of the tournament in their semi-final games, as Halton defeated the First Star Hockey Ducks, while the Sharks beat NCR Konixx Elite.
It would also be a low-scoring affair as both goaltenders (Lucas Swzagiel for the Coyotes and Jaisal Patel for the Sharks) played extremely well for their Hockey clubs. It would be a scoreless game until late into the second Ethan Fereirra would break the tie and give Halton the lead.
Shortly after the Sharks would call a timeout with three minutes remaining a brilliant individual effort from Dominic Hofferber would tie it up for the Sharks bringing the game even at 1.
However with 2 seconds remaining in the hockey game, the Coyotes would have the chance to finally pull ahead and win the hockey game, as Jaden Smith would have the game on his stick with a wide-open backdoor but Patel would be there just in time to make the save to send the game into overtime.
After the first overtime would solve nothing, it wouldn't take long for a goal to happen in double overtime, as 40 seconds into the fourth period, JP Moreira would go end to end and wire home the game-winner leading the Coyotes to the Peewee Gold title.
The Peewee Platinum championship would a feature the RoadRunners against the Rattlers. Looking a bit gassed from their semi-final clash, the RoadRunners would start flat-footed as the Rattlers would dominate the first few minutes and capitalize on their chances, with goals coming from Mark McPhee and Luke Tchor.
When it looked as if the RoadRunners would look normal, following a delayed penalty Rory Kerins and Ryan O'Toole would set up Christian Williamson to make it 3-0 for the Rattlers.
Frankie Jirak would score to cut the lead to 2 but in a play started by Jacob Frasca, Kerins would find Tchor for his second of the game to seal it for the Rattlers, clinching the Platinum championship.
The trio of Thomas Haynes, Kerins and Frasca were solid on the back-end for the Rattlers throughout the whole tournament, and it showed once more in this championship game. Sami Molu finished the tournament with a .958 Save percentage, showcased his world-class talent once again in the finals, making key saves on the RoadRunners top-end players.
Molu would take home the Top Goalie award, while Kerins (who finished the tournament with 14 points) earned the tournament's Top Scorer award.
Follow @BringerOfRaine on Twitter to get updates of articles throughout the NARCh Finals.