Wearing the ‘dark hat’ and surrounded by a crowd of 1,000 fans cheering on the underdog hosts, the Burnaby Winter Club Bruins turned that adversity on its head to claim the Western Canadian AAA bantam hockey title.
It didn’t come easy, however. Although they never trailed, the Bruins needed a dramatic shorthanded tally from Burnaby native Massimo Rizzo to pull out a 3-2 victory over the Rocky Mountain Raiders in Okotoks, Alta.
Rizzo’s marker came with 2:35 remaining in the third, where he turned a turnover into a breakaway and beat Raiders netminder Jackson Berry to give the Bruins the lead.
It was the team’s third shorthanded goal in five games, as head coach John Batchelor has utilized his most fleetest scorers in a penalty-killing role to perfection.
“We stuck our top offensive players out in that situation just to do that, and it couldn’t come at a better time,” said Batchelor. “The whole strategy going in (to the final) was to take advantage of their mistakes. They made it tough but we won out.”
After a scoreless first period, the Bruins tallied twice in the middle frame on goals from Henrik Rybinski and Rizzo. They could have easily doubled it if not for a strong game by Berry in the Rocky Mountain net.
The host team, which earned its berth into the final with a 2-2 record, had closed out the round robin portion of the tourney with a 4-3 loss to 4-0 Burnaby. Demonstrating plenty of resilience, the Raiders erased the Bruins’ 2-0 lead with a pair of goals, four minutes into the third and midway through the period.
There were some nerves at the start.
“There’s always some nerves and jitters but we started well and realistically could have been up a couple in the first as we out-shot them like 15-7,” recalled Batchelor. “In the third they came at us strong and we weathered it pretty well I thought… (Their second goal) came after Rizzo was waved out of the faceoff circle for I don’t know what. We lost the faceoff and they scored on a shot from the point. It was kind of brutal, really.”
It all came down to Rizzo’s shorthanded goal.
“When they tied it we didn’t get down, the guys stayed with the process and did what they needed to do.”
Batchelor has coached five teams to the Western Canadians, and ranks this group right up among the best.
“This is probably the fastest team I’ve ever had, top to bottom,” said Batchelor, who coached Edmonton Oilers centre Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and New York Islanders first-round pick Mathew Barzal, among others. “These guys are right at the top and we had a lot of depth. Our five defencemen are all good skaters and strong puck handlers.”
The trip, which saw the club roll undefeated through four round-robin tests into the final, was well attended by major junior, college and NHL scouts.
Voted the Most Valuable Player of the tournament was Burnaby’s Sasha Mutala, a 6-foot forward who tallied four goals and three assists over the five games. Rizzo led all shooters with three goals and eight assists, while Ryan Denny contributed three goals and four assists. Also scoring four times was Elan Bar-Lev-Wise.
Selected to the tourney all-star squad were Lane, Mutala and Rizzo.
