The St. Paul Canadiens Peewee hockey team hosted a tournament over the weekend, with five teams travelling to town for the round robin event.
St. Paul coach Ted Graling was hoping for a good result over the weekend, something that, for him, involves more than just wins and losses.
“It’s our home tournament, so you just want the kids to have some fun,” he said. “The kids want to be here, and they’re working really hard. If you can make the kids want to come back to the arena, you’re successful. That’s what I gauge my success on.”
Each team played four games over the course of the two-day tournament, with scheduled shootouts taking place after each contest in order to develop some skills and allow for a little fun. Points were awarded for wins and ties, and points were also awarded for winning a period of play.
“The teams look really close,” said organizer Michelle Leroux. “We were worried about the Edmonton teams being higher quality than ours, but they seem to be pretty much on par.”
As far as the NEAHL regular season goes, the Tier 1 Peewee team from St. Paul is off to a good start.
“With a 3-1 start there’s a little bit of optimism in the air, but we still have lots to do,” Graling said. ”Everybody’s at a different level. The kids who came from Atom last year, you won’t really see them hit their full stride until Christmas.”
Coming off a hard-fought loss in their first game of the tournament, Canadiens’ player Austin Caouette was happy with his team’s performance.
“It was good, we fought pretty hard,” he said of the game.
Caouette was also hoping to put on a good show for the hometown crowd over the weekend.
“Our goal is to finish first, because it’s our home tournament,” he said. “We’ve got lots of fans here.”
After all of the points were tallied, it was the Sturgeon Mustangs who came out in first place, with the Canadiens ending up in fourth.
