Submitted by Jenn Peardon

The U11 Wheatkings are a team made up of local talent from Kindersley, Kerrobert, Dodsland, Macklin, Unity and surrounding areas.

We hosted our home tournament in Kindersley and had 8 teams from all over Saskatchewan in attendance playing some very exciting carded hockey.

The tournament started Friday with an 11:00am game against the North West Ice. The Wheatkings got things rolling after giving up the one goal early but never looked back as they won that game 8-1.

Game 2 had them set up to play against Meadow Lake Stampeders at 4:00pm the same day and the Wheatkings once again played a strong game and came out on top, winning the game 12-0.

Saturday morning the boys hit the ice at 10:30am with a match up against the Humboldt Broncos. The Wheatkings won 10-0 with goals from numerous players on the team and some great saves by Anderson in net.

So, going undefeated in round robin play had them set up to play the Watrous Hawks in the A final on Sunday at 12:30pm on the Events Centre ice surface. The Hawks came into the game also undefeated and it was set to be a great game.

The Wheatkings opened up the scoring by getting the first two goals and then it didn’t take long for Watrous to tie it up and then eventually take the lead 3-2 after the 1st period.

The second was full of action but both goalies did outstanding and kept the score at 3-2 after 2. With a break between the 2nd and 3rd period both teams came back on the ice to try and finish strong and take home the championship.

After numerous chances both ways the Wheatkings managed to tie the game up with 3 min left in the 3rd period!

No more goals were scored in regulation so we were left with a tie and we went into sudden death overtime!

The OT started with 5 minutes of 4 on 4 action and when that 5 minutes was up we were still deadlocked at 3-3. The teams went back out on the ice to start their 2nd overtime period and with 2 minutes remaining in the 2nd overtime the Wheatkings managed to find the back of the net in a very exciting finish to a fabulous tournament. With the game ending in our favour and a score of 4-3.

Both teams played hard and put it all on the line and the Wheatkings coaches, kids and fans couldn’t be more proud and excited to have the A final win at our home tournament.

The whole weekend ran so smoothly and we couldn’t do these events without fabulous volunteers, parents, coaches, managers, and a special shout out to our local refs who keep it all together on the ice.

The U11 Wheatkings have one more tournament to finish off the season in Saskatoon at the Black Aces tournament on March 24th, 25th and 26th and we are looking to bring home some more hardware.