Four Whitehorse hockey teams welcomed two teams from Juneau for the International Showdown, over the weekend at the Canada Games Centre and Takhini Arena.

The teams were divided into two brackets. One Juneau bantam team played the Female Mustangs and the peewee development team and a mix of players from the bantam house league. The Peewee Mustangs, the Bantam Development Team, nicknamed the Black Aces, played the second Juneau bantam team.

Coach of the Bantam Development Team, Brad Geier, says the International Showdown, a friendly set of games, gives the players a chance to face off with different opposition on the ice.

“The kids get tired of playing the same team’s all the time,” said Geier. “It gives the Juneau and Whitehorse players different people to play. The teams were all fairly equal.”

The Showdown has been happening for a number of years now.

“It’s for sure been at least happening the last two-three years,” said Geier. “It started as a home and home series. It is just a fun weekend of hockey for the teams.”

The Peewee Mustangs won all the games they played. The team had four games playing the Development Team and the Juneau bantam team twice. Head coach Derek Johnstone said, “the team did well, they only played one bad period of hockey.”

The final game the Peewee Mustangs played was against the Juneau team, in a game Johnstone described as “quite the barnburner.”

“The one Juneau game was really exciting,” said Johnstone. “We were down 3-0 with three-minutes remaining in the game. We got one goal back on the power play. We pulled our goalie and got another one. After we regained possession of the puck we pulled the goalie again and scored with eight seconds left on the clock.”

The Mustangs went on to win the game in a shootout, quite the barnburner indeed.