Bantam Mustangs return from road trip with third place

Bantam Mustangs return from road trip with third place

The Whitehorse Bantam Mustangs A team stepped up their physical game to take third place in a tournament in Wetaskiwin, Alta., this past weekend.

The Mustangs are used to playing rec league hockey, where no contact is allowed.

At the Wetaskiwin Tier 2 Hockey Tournament the boys had to power up to play full contact bantam hockey.

“We knew we had to rev up our physical game,” said coach Jay Glass. “Full contact bantam hockey isn’t the same.”

And rev up they did – the team managed to pull off a third place win losing only to the Meadow Lake, Sask. team that went on to win the tournament.

“The one loss cost us second place in our division,” said Glass. Despite the loss, the Mustangs’ other games were overwhelming wins.

“The boys played really well,” said Glass.

The Mustangs won their first game on Friday against a team called Confederation 5-2.

The success of the first game pushed them through Saturday, where they lost their game against Meadow Lake 4-2, but came back huge in the afternoon to win 10-4 against the host team.

Meadow Lake won the tournament 8-1 overall.

“We’d had a real good game with them,” said Glass of the winning team.

On Sunday the Mustangs beat a visiting Edmonton team 7-1, ending the weekend of high scoring hockey action.

“We’re of course a little disappointed that we didn’t get into that gold medal game,” said Glass.

He says the Mustangs’ defence helped stop their competition from getting many chances.

“Our defencemen kept the opposition outside,” he said. “We really defended our own zone well.”

Glass, fellow coach Dave Pearson and assistant coach Craig Steinbach had been playing around with a combination of linesman, and seem to have found a winning lineup.

“We were getting a lot of pucks in deep,” said Glass. “We scored some really nice goals.”

Glass says after the tournament he received positive compliments from officials about the boys’ behaviour.

“The boys were good on and off the ice,” he said.

The Mustangs have a two week break before they head to Fairbanks on Nov. 26 for five exhibition games.

They then have a month off until their next tournament on Dec. 27 at home. In the meantime they will continue with regular rec league play.

In practice Glass hopes to work on using power play advantages and play in the neutral zone.

“We have to be able to switch from defence to offence with speed,” Glass said.