Provincial champs
Peewee Crushers to represent Nova Scotia at Atlantics
The Peewee AAA Crushers are heading to Newfoundland for Atlantics.
The local squad captured the Nova Scotia banner on their home ice on Sunday afternoon, beating the TASA Ducks 3-2 in the championship game in front of a packed Trenton rink and doing it in dramatic style. Captain Landon Sim broke down the right side with one defender to beat, somehow made his way to the front of the net and slid the puck home.
There were 3.7 seconds left on the clock as the Crushers burst into jubilation.
The ending was not without controversy as the Ducks were assessed two penalties in the last two minutes, the final one with 50 seconds to go on the clock. The Ducks bench was furious and let referee Brian Affleck hear about it after the game.
“Penalties are penalties, and that was a penalty,” said Crushers coach Jon Sim.
“They played rough the the whole (tournament) and it came back on them. We kept our sticks down and played the right way.”
No one with the Ducks’ coaching staff was willing to comment.
Keifer Avery and Blaise MacDonald also had goals for Pictou County, who went into the tournament as the fifth seed, scraped into the crossovers after going 1-3 in the roundrobin and beat Halifax on Sunday morning to get a spot in the final.
“They are an absolutely crazy group of kids and they bought in at the right time, and here we are the champs,” Sim said.
“I don’t think anyone counted on us to be here except our players, and our parents and staff.”
The Atlantic Peewee AAA championships are in two weeks in Conception Bay, N.L.