The New Westminster Peewee C1 Royals struck gold in dramatic fashion this past weekend beating Vancouver T-Birds in a shootout at historic Queen’s Park Arena.
After going 2-1-1 in the round robin portion of the Al Hughes Memorial peewee tournament, the Royals faced the heavily favoured unbeaten squad from Cloverdale in the semifinals.
New West goalie Daniel Jacinto turned away everything Cloverdale shot his way, earning a 2-0 shutout win and game MVP honors.
The Royals then faced off with the T-Birds for the gold medal in front of a very loud home crowd.
Ethan Fontaine opened the scoring in the first period on a short-handed wrist shot from the top of the circle that seemed to freeze the Vancouver netminder.
With the game tied at one after two periods, Dan Santos converted a three-way passing play from Carter Nestman and Oscar Porcellato to give New West a 2-1 lead heading into the third.
The T-Birds again evened the score with just minutes before regulation time had expired. The overtime period was extremely tight checking with not many scoring chances for either team.
In the shootout, Ethan Fontaine scored on a nifty forehand-to-backhand deke to score first for the Royals.
The T-Birds needed to score on their third attempt and score they did on a nice shot off the far side post and in. After both teams failed to convert with their fourth shooters, Porcellato, who earned the game MVP, came at the T-Bird goalie with speed and put a hard snapper between his legs as the fans roared in appreciation. The T-Birds needed to score to stay alive and sent in their fifth shooter, but after two hours of hard skating the ice was not the greatest and the puck rolled up on edge on the shot attempt, sending it wide of the net, giving the Royals the win.
