The Cloverdale U18 A1 Colts recently won a bronze medal at provincials.
The team took third place with a “hard-fought win” 4-3 over the North East Trackers in late March in Salmon Arm.
Placing third, the Colts bettered last year’s fourth-place provincial finish.
“It’s always special to be able to compete in that type of environment,” said head coach Brien Gemmell. “Anytime you get the top eight teams in the province at the U18 tier one level to compete against each other, it’s great hockey.”
Gemmell’s squad earned two wins and one tie in the round robin and finished atop their pool. They played eventual gold medal winners East Kootenay Avalanche in the semifinal, but lost 5-1.
“That game was a lot closer than the scoreline dictated,” explained Gemmell. “They got two empty-netters. We tried to close the gap with about four minutes to go when it was 3-1.”
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He said the goaltending was great in the game against East Kootenay. He added both his goalies, Benjamin MacLeod and Brett Bateman, were “outstanding” throughout the entire tournament.
“It was a close game,” Gemmell said of his team’s semifinal loss. “We outshot them by something like 39 to 27. We just couldn’t score. Their goalie played well, but it was just one of those games.”
As for the Colts bronze medal win, the kids slew a dragon, of sorts, when they beat the Trackers. Last year, the Trackers ended the Colts’ gold medal hopes when they downed Cloverdale 3-2 in overtime in the provincial semifinal. (The Trackers ended up losing last year’s gold medal game to the Central Okanagan Rockets 3-2.)
Nine players returned to the Colts that were on the team that lost to the Trackers last season. Gemmell said the boys talked about it in the dressing room and it drove them to compete even harder.
“We played a great game against the Trackers and it’s always nice to win your last game,” he said. “We beat them in the round robin and in the bronze game, so that was quite the accomplishment. Lots of smiles and great memories. It meant a lot to those guys to beat them.
“The way the semis played out, a few breaks here or there, and we could’ve been in the final game. But we weren’t and we ended up with a bronze and we’re very proud of that.”
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Gemmell added Salmon Arm were amazing hosts, the tournament was well run, and the organizers didn’t miss any details.
He said his players faced some adversity this year, but worked hard to get through it and showed “great character” throughout the regular season, tournaments, playoffs, and the provincial championships.
His team only lost two games during the course of the regular season, finishing third in the log with a 12-2-6 record over 20 games. The Colts didn’t lose a game in the second half of the regular season and only suffered two losses in 2023: one to Semiahmoo in the provincial-qualifying, four-point playoff tournament and one to the Avalanche in the provincial semi-final game.
“We did pretty well,” he said. “And we were very proud to represent Cloverdale at the provincials for the second year in a row. We have, obviously, several graduating players this year, this was their last year in Cloverdale, and so it was nice for those guys to go out with a medal around their neck and put in a good showing at the B.C. provincials.”
Gemmell said he thinks the team will be very competitive again next year with most of the players returning and some successful up-and-coming players after the Cloverdale Minor Hockey Asssociaiton’s U18 A2 team just came home with a silver medal.
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“We’ll have a very good team next year with the guys that are returning and with the kids coming up from that A2 program that did so well in tier 2 provincials.”
He said he definitely thinks his team will have a chance to get back to provincials and have a great opportunity to “win the whole thing” next year.
“Our future looks really good,” Gemmell added. “We’re really excited to get that process going.”
editor@cloverdalereporter.com
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