Main Photo: The Huntsville PeeWee Sting Yellow celebrate their bronze medal win (back row from left) Eden Bennett, Paige Bennett, Tyrnie Hesslegrave, Tilly Douglas, Grace Baxter, Gillian Loates; (front from left) Aliyah O’Dell, Claire Hyde, Abby Allen and Victoria Lunman. Missing: Brianna Belfry and Maeve Young.
Possibly inspired by the hockey great whose name is emblazoned on the arena, the Huntsville PeeWee Sting Yellow brought home bronze from the Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre in Brantford when they participated in the 37th Annual Walter Gretzky Girls Hockey Tournament at the end of February.
Out of the 11 teams competing in their division, the PeeWee Sting Yellow were the only ones to play all three of their games on the first day of the tournament.
Their first game was against the Brantford Ice Cats, which they won with an enormous lead of 7-1. The Sting’s second game was lost to the Ayr Rockets 0-2. And in their third game of the day, Huntsville met the Wingham 86r’s and took their second win of the tournament, 2-1.
“They played all their games on Friday and had to wait until all 11 teams had played their their games by late in the day Saturday so we were unsure where we would end up,” said coach Mark O’Dell. “Great surprise to know we had secured third place, from two great wins and a very close game loss.”
Early Sunday morning, the Sting headed into the semi-final game at the Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre. The team played hard and fought all the way to tie the game 2-2. After a five-minute overtime in which no goals were scored, the teams headed into a shootout round. In the girls’ league, the shootouts are played skater for skater.
“With six skaters deep into a shootout we unfortunately lost,” said O’Dell. “The girls played tremendously well and had smiles on their faces all weekend.” The Huntsville PeeWee Sting Yellow took third place with pride. Congrats, girls! Go, Sting!
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So proud of all you girls!! Way to go Sting!