The Burnaby Winter Club missed a chance to win a rare triple at the 41st annual Hockey Hounds major bantam hockey tournament in Medicine Hat.
The AAA bantam Bruins lost 6-4 to the South Side Athletic Club in the championship final on Sunday.
The loss was the second of the tournament for Burnaby against the top Edmonton club. BWC also dropped its opening game of the competition to SSAC.
The winter club had won the title banner at the Medicine Hat tourney for the past two seasons.
But the rivalry with South Side goes deeper than that, said winter club head coach John Batchelor.
Burnaby defeated the Edmonton club in both of its back-to-back Western Canadian bantam championship banner wins in 2011 and ’12.
“Oh yeah, there’s a bit of history there,” said Batchelor. “The Edmonton team is very good. … we were just off. I don’t know, we weren’t the same team. They had a lot to do with it, but we were just different.”
In the opening game against South Side, Burnaby had an outstanding first period but got itself into penalty trouble in the later periods.
In the tournament final, Edmonton got a 3-0 jump on the Bruins and held off a late charge by the Canada Way crew.
Burnaby’s third line of Liam Evanson, Baxter Anderson and Nolan Welsh got the Bruins back in the game, with Anderson and Welsh both finding the back of the net.
Trailing 5-4, Tyler Breziuso had a glorious scoring chance saved by the Alberta keeper.
“They had a good game plan, and they worked it to perfection,” said Batchelor. “The top teams from Western Canada were there, but there were teams that shouldn’t have been there. But we had a tough draw. We played South Side twice and Lloydminster once, and they were the two top teams in Alberta.”
Burnaby Winter Club blanked Lloydminster 3-0 in the tournament quarter-final.
The winter club’s semifinal game against B.C. rival North Shore Winter Club was defaulted after the North Shore team came down with a stomach virus.
Burnaby’s James Malm led all scorers in the round robin with a tournament high seven goals and 12 points. Malm was also named to the tournament all-star team and was the recipient of a $2,500 scholarship.
Burnaby defenceman Nick Watson was also selected to the all-tournament team.
