Whitehorse Daily Star

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Photo by Vince Fedoroff

DOWN TO THE WIRE – Team Chaos player Chantelle Rivest, pictured left, carries the puck through the middle during her team's 3-2 overtime win against Team Evil in the finals of the 2nd Annual International Whitehorse Women's Hockey Jamboree over the weekend. Team Chaos and Team Evil players, pictured right, scramble for a loose puck in front of Team Evil goaltender Nancy Pumphrey in the championship game on Sunday.

Team Chaos wins women's hockey jamboree in OT

Late goal to force overtime.

By Jonathan Russell on November 15, 2010

Late goal to force overtime.

OT winner.

These late-game goals made for an exciting end to Team Chaos' 3-2 win over Team Evil in the finals of the 2nd Annual International Whitehorse Women's Hockey Jamboree on Sunday.

The weekend-long event was capped by a back-and-forth match up between the tourney's top two teams.

Team Evil's Claudia Heath jammed the puck in on her second attempt past sprawling Team Chaos goaltender Sue Roy with 1:51 left in the third period to push the game into OT.

But Heath's celebrations were cut short with 2:43 left in OT.

Team Chaos sniper Chantelle Rivest scored her second goal of the game off a shot through the defenseman and into the bottom corner.

Shot, sort of.

"One of the things I've been telling our team throughout the tournament is that if you're going to dump it in dump it on net because you never know what's going to happen, and that is actually what I was trying to do, I was just going to dump it in and chase it. I got lucky and it ended up going in,” Rivest said.

Rivest opened the game's scoring at 15:11 in the first period on a break after Roy tipped the puck away from the top corner.

Brianne Young responded for Evil two minutes later off a pass from Cody Claggett following a scramble in front.

Chaos had the final say before the end of the first when Stacie Zaychuk picked up the puck off another scramble in front at 7:11.

The score remained 2-1 until late in the second, but not before both goalies, Roy and Nancy Pumphrey for Evil, stood tall during wave after wave of breakouts on both ends.

Jamboree coordinator and Team Evil player Lily Gontard said the weekend is a mix of fun and skill development.

"Some of the women are expert players, they're really, really good, and some are absolute beginners,” Gontard said. "You have a lot of the advanced players on the bench with the beginners and the intermediate coaching everyone, they're really encouraging, and that helps develop the players' skill and confidence; it's a really positive atmosphere.”

Five teams of 62 players signed up for the jamboree, up from four teams and roughly 45 players last year.

"It's a different energy (compared to the league),” Gontard said. "It's also fun just to have a two-day women's event. We play all weekend and we have a party on Saturday night. It's just a good time.”

The Whitehorse jamboree is modeled after a jamboree in Haines Junction, she added.

That's a tournament Rivest has been playing in since she was little, she said.

"I never actually thought we'd get one in Whitehorse, and it's great that we have, and we have all the ladies from the community coming out, so it was fun and all the teams are evenly matched,” she said.

She agreed that the jamboree is about getting women out to play some hockey and have a good time.

"It is about fun and about getting as many women out as you can – but it is a good chance for strong, hard hockey,” Rivest said.

"We had a lot of battles along the boards, we had a lot of physical contact ... so it's nice to see that women are picking it up and seeing that this is how we can play hockey.”

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