On April 1, the Mount Forest Rams Peewee ‘C’ girls team travelled to Vaughan to participate in the Lower Lakes Female Hockey League Championship.
The tournament was dubbed “the best of the best” as the participating four teams had to make it through two rounds of playoffs in order to qualify.
The top two teams in the West division (Mount Forest Rams and Kitchener Lady Rangers) and the top two teams in the East division (Bancroft Jets and Lindsay Lynx) were vying for the championship title.
Before the tournament started, the Rams were presented with medals for coming out on top of the West division as “regular season champions” following an undefeated regular season record of 20-0-2.The Rams would also go undefeated during championship weekend.
Starting off in round robin play, the Rams defeated the strong Kitchener Lady Rangers 2-1. Moving on to game two, the Rams came flying out of the gates against Bancroft with three goals in the first five minutes of play and finished the game with a 3-2 victory to head into the final round robin game.
Saturday brought on a very spirited game versus a Lindsay team that was out to prove something as they had gone winless so far in the tournament. It was a back-and-forth game with chances for both teams until one of the Lynx was handed a five minute major cross checking penalty and a two-game suspension, putting the Rams on a power play which they were able to capitalize on with a nice point shot from the defense. With a final score of 1-0 the Rams were guaranteed a spot in the gold medal game.
Kitchener also secured its spot in the gold medal game with a 1-1-1 record. Being familiar rivals, having played each other all season, both teams knew it could go either way and were ready to play from the moment the puck dropped.
Kitchener took an early 1-0 lead in the first period after a blue line miscue by the Rams, but the Rams never gave up and kept digging hard and throwing everything they could at the net.
The score would remain 1-0 for the Rangers until the third period, when the Rams tied it up. Suddenly, the momentum changed and the Rams kept pouring it on and not long after the tying goal the Rams took the lead.
With the clock ticking down and Kitchener wanting to tie it up, they pulled their goalie. But try as they may, they weren’t able to find the back of the net and the final buzzer rang with the Rams winning 2-1.
The win secured another set of gold medals for the girls as “Lower Lakes Female Hockey League Champions.”
