The Vancouver Spirit Pee Wee C2 Contact team capped a thrilling season yesterday by capturing the Gold Division Banner. The game took place in the Richmond Arena before a large and exuberant group of fans. The Spirit’s opponent on this day was the rival VMHA C1 Grizzlies. These two teams had played each other several times during the season, with all of the games resulting in hotly contested and spirited affairs; Sunday’s early morning tilt was no exception. The Grizzlies stormed out of the gate in the first period, coming in wave after wave into the Spirit end of the ice. The Grizzlies poured shot after shot on our Spirit's goalie and if not for an outstanding effort by our goalie, the score could have been lopsided. As it was, the Grizzlies went up 3-0 in the first period and seemingly had the Spirit on the ropes. The game was marred by several questionable checks and the play was stopped numerous times for injured players. Both teams were giving no quarter and it showed.
The teams exchanged goals in the second period to leave the score 4-1 as one of our Centre men finally got the Spirit on the board. The third period belonged to the Spirit however, as one of our Defence men took over the game and scored 3 spectacular goals on end to end rushes to tie the score at 4-4. The Spirit killed off a late penalty and sent the game into overtime, setting the table for our Captain’s heroics. Only minutes into the overtime, our Leader took the puck off a face-off and crossed the Grizzlie’s blue line; moving to his right he released a quick wrist shot that beat Grizzlie's goalie- five hole - giving the Spirit the unlikely comeback win. The Spirit bench poured out onto the ice and a wild celebration ensued.
It was a golden weekend for the Spirit as they were also presented the Sportsmanship trophy at the annual VMHA dinner on Friday night to go along with their Championship Banner. Congratulations to both the Spirit and Grizzlies for a wildly exciting final game and a successful and hard fought season.
