Icefest tourney expands with major peewee division
The loss of the Wally Beavis Memorial Peewee Hockey Tournament was sure to have an effect on the local hockey landscape.
One change this year was the decision of the Peterborough Minor Hockey Council to expand two of its annual tournaments to include divisions for its minor peewee and major peewee teams.
In September, the Pat Larock Memorial Earlybird Tournament, which traditionally features novice and atom teams, added a minor peewee division.
This week’s Boston Pizza Icefest Tournament, traditionally a minor and major bantam tournament, now has a major peewee division.
“We considered the Wally Beavis tournament our home tournament but, unfortunately, some years there weren’t a lot of AAA teams coming to it,” said PMHC president Walter DiClemente. “The way it’s set up now it’s all AAA teams in both the major and minor peewee divisions.”
The Peterborough Hockey Association had taken over operation of the Beavis tournament in recent years. With the tournament coming to an end last year, the PHA moved its annual A/AE tournament, held in the past during the Thanksgiving weekend, to the November time slot usually used for the Beavis.
DiClemente said rather than try to create its own AAA peewee tournament, his board thought the easier route was to expend existing tournaments to include their peewee teams.
“This is the direction we decided to go in particularly because it’s tough to find a weekend anymore to start another tournament,” DiClemente said.
“When you consider girls hockey and the PHA has its tournaments and high school tournaments, we’re running out of weekends where you can actually have it where it’s not affecting another peewee tournament somewhere else.”
The major peewee division will feature 10 teams divided into two groups of five including Peterborough, Mississauga Senators, North Central Predators, Ottawa Valley Titans and Timmins North Stars in Group A. Group B includes the Guelph Gryphons, Quinte Red Devils, Rochester Monarchs, Sudbury Wolves and Upper Canada Cyclones.
The minor bantam division will feature 16 teams and the major bantam division has 20 teams.
“A lot of the major bantam teams are gearing up for their minor midget year so a lot of those kids are kind of being pre-scouted for how they’ll rank them when they get up to their (OHL draft) year so it’s a big tournament for them,” said DiClemente.
The tournament will begin Thursday and run through to Sunday utilizing the Evinrude Centre, Kinsmen Civic Centre, Peterborough Memorial Centre and Asphodel-Norwood Community Centre. Finals in all three divisions will be held Sunday at the PMC with peewees at 1 p.m., minor bantams at 3 p.m. and major bantams at 5 p.m.
The Billy Smith Sells major peewee Petes kick off their tournament at 3:15 p.m. Thursday against Guelph at the Evinrude Centre’s IGA pad. The Drain Brothers minor bantam Petes face the Kitchener Rangers at 3 p.m. Thursday at the Evinrude’s atom pad. The Rehill Building Supplies major bantam Petes face the Hamilton Huskies at 4:30 p.m. at the Evinrude’s atom pad.