The Mid-Island Extreme Midget girls hockey team capped off its season in Salmon Arm at their Tier 1 provincial playdowns recently, and the squad’s three local players were right there in the thick of things.
Back in February the Extreme swept the Victoria Royals two games straight in their best of three final to claim the Island banner.
“They actually beat us all four games during the regular season but we were missing players ... they came in a little over-confident, and I think they were surprised,” Extreme head coach Roger Chamberlain recapped when The News caught up with him.
In action at the B.C.s in Salmon Arm March 19-23, the Extreme played hard but didn’t get any bounces as they went 1-4-1.
“It was tough,” Chamberlain conceded, explaining their opener against the Kelowna Rockets was a sign of things to come, as the Island girls battled hard but came up on the short end of a 2-1 final.
In game two they came up short, 1-0, against Windermere Valley.
“Again, outplayed them, outshot them, played good enough to win — just couldn’t buy a goal.”
In game three against the host Silverbacks, the Extreme found themselves down 3-buzz after the first period, but battled spoiled their party by battling back for the 3-3 tie.
“We hit a goal post in the third period that would have put us ahead,” chuckled Chamberlain, adding the first three games, “all could have easily gone our way, but after that we had to play desperate hockey.”
The Extreme lost game four, 3-1 to the Surrey Falcons, another team with their backs against the wall, then bounced back with a solid 5-0 win over Whitehorse in Game 5.
“At that point we knew we were out (of the tournament playoffs), but it was good for the kids just to have a decent game and score some goals.”
The Extreme closed out the B.C.s with a loss to the eventual provincial champion Richmond Ravens, who finished undefeated on the season.
“They were good.”
“Our season started off kind of rough, we didn’t really get going in my opinion until after Christmas,” surmised coach C, “and then once our playoffs came along they worked really hard as a team and tried to be better hockey players. A very good group of kids.”
Earning props from their coach for their contributions were his Oceansiders: netminder Maddy Meyer and D-girls Celine Tardif and Tianna Squire.
“Tianna played very strong, and Celine was probably our best overall player for the whole tournament.
“Maddy played really well — she held us in there and gave us a chance to win for sure.”
The squad of 15 to 17-year-olds from across the Island, played around 35 games this year.