Hard road ahead for AAA Petes at OHL Cup
There will be no easy games for the Peterborough Fitzsimmons Garage U16 AAA Petes at the OHL Cup Showcase Tournament this week and that’s just fine by coach Jamey Hicks.
The Petes are in a pool with the Toronto Marlies, Ottawa Myers Automotive, the London Jr. Knights and the winner of Monday’s wild-card game between the Halton Hurricanes and Niagara North Stars.
The 20 teams are divided into four pools for round-robin play, with the top two in each advancing to quarterfinals Thursday. The semifinals and final will be played on Saturday. All games are at Toronto’s Scotiabank Pond until Saturday when action switches to Toronto’s Mattamy Athletics Centre.
The Petes opened pool play Monday morning against the Toronto Marlies and then faced the winner of the wild-card game. They will face Ottawa on Tuesday at 1:15 p.m. and complete pool play against London on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.
The Petes clinched a tournament berth by reaching the final four of the OMHA Championship Tournament last week where they lost in the final to the Barrie Jr. Colts.
The Petes finished the season ranked No. 10 in the weekly OHL Cup rankings, while the Marlies are ranked No. 6, Ottawa No. 7 and London and Halton received honourable mentions.
Hicks said the quality of competition requires his team to be focused and prepared for every game.
“It’s a good pool for us. The two teams that come out of our pool will be battle ready,” said Hicks, who put his players through their final practice Saturday.
They have faced the Marlies twice this season, losing 2-1 in overtime in the semifinals of the Marlies Tournament during the Christmas holidays and 3-1 in the semifinals of the Toronto Titans Tournament early in the season.
“It’s a team we’re familiar with and we’re hoping to play well against them on Monday,” said Hicks.
They defeated Halton 3-0 in the quarterfinals of the Titans Tournament.
They defeated Niagara, 7-3, in the Steve Richey Memorial Tournament of Champions in Peterborough in January and again, 5-4, in pool play at the OMHA tournament. The Petes have not faced Ottawa or London this season.
They made it through the OMHA tournament without Colin Fitzgerald, projected as a potential firstround selection for next month’s OHL draft, who was serving a suspension. He’ll return for the Marlies game.
Hicks says the team’s focus in preparation has been to continue what it has been doing during a successful second half of its season.
“If we stay within ourselves, we’ll be fine,” he said. “We have a lot of confidence in how we have been playing. There are four good teams in our division, there is no doubt. We try to talk about what teams have done in the past. It’s such a short week with four games and ups and downs. You have to try to stay on an even keel and take everything that comes at us and stay within ourselves. Trust in the process. When we trust the process as a team, usually the results are pretty good for us.”
Two other Peterborough boys will be competing at the tournament with GTHL teams. Ben Bowen is in his second season with the Vaughan Kings, who won the OHF Championship last year and have been the No. 1-ranked team for the OHL Cup all season. Ryan Chamberlain is a member of the Marlies and will face his former minor Petes teammates in the tournament opener.
It’s a good pool for us. The two teams that come out of our pool will be battle ready.
JAMEY HICKS COACH OF THE PETERBOROUGH FITZSIMMONS GARAGE U16 AAA PETES