Ontario Beast Prospects capture Bronze at most competitive 92-birth year, prospect level tournament in North America - Toronto Prospects May 13-15th weekend.

The Beasts arrived in Toronto for what was anticipated as the most competitive tournament in North America at this age group. While checking in at the tournament office we were given the list of players attending for each team. The teams and players read like the who’s who in AAA hockey. The 24 teams attending all must have a roster made up of players across minimally six AAA organizations and have a proven track record at previous high-level

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tournaments just to be accepted. The Beasts team was slightly different then in the previous tournament in Montreal joined by a top player out of Ottawa, three out of Toronto and one from Detroit. Our first game on Friday would be the Boston Junior Bruins who won the 2004 Repentigny tournament. This was the much-anticipated rematch. We played them three times the year before mustering one tie and two loses. This year was to be different, the Beast Prospects were much stronger and racked up an impressive 6-1 win. The Bruins looked puzzled as the powerful Beasts totally out-matched them shift after shift.
The next test was from an elite team gather together from players all over the State of Minnesota called the Minnesota Blades Grey 5-2. The Beasts started strong and quickly went up 2-1 before a miscued clearing attempt was shot into an open goal. The Beasts didn’t fold under the situation and bounced back with three straight goals to secure the second win of the day and solid start to the tournament.
The coaches talked at length with the team about the days results, learning’s, adjustments and expectations of play needed to compete with the highly touted CAN AM team in our first game on Saturday morning. CAN AM came with top players from the Junior Canadiens, the LA hockey club, South Shore Kings (top team in Boston), York Simcoe, Young Nats and the Red Wings which gives some indication of the talent assembled. The CAN AM team came on strong in the opening minutes. The Beast seems back on their heels and intimidated. CAN AM scored first and look like they might pull away. Then the Beast took three consecutive penalties and went down 5-3 for 2 minutes along with down a player for 4 minutes. Jeffrey stole the puck and scored a short handed timely goal, which gave the team a much needed shot of adrenaline. After killing the penalties, the Beast roared to scored three straight goals and shock a large on-looking crowd, which couldn’t figure out, who was this Beast club and where did they come from. We were on the map with an exciting 4-1 win.

With our tough game out of the way the team enjoy some down time before meeting Long Island selects later that night. The Beast powered by the Gulls 10-0 in a one-side victory.

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The Beasts finish the round robin play as only one of two teams undefeated 4 and 0 and with the best goals for and against 25-4. After round robin we were ranked number one position and had to play number 16 ranked team the next morning at 8:00am. All the games on Sunday playoffs would be 30-minute, stop time, one period games.

We arrived at the rink to find out we were playing the Minnesota Blades Black team. This was another team from the state of Minnesota an area knew for great hockey players and rich in talent. The Beasts got off to a slow start in this one. They looked half a sleep as the Minnesota team opened up an early lead. It was only a matter of time before things started to turn and the Beasts started to warm up. The last 5 minutes of the game the Beasts scored 3 goals to win 6-2 and advance to the top eight teams.

Next was the Ottawa Local Hero's (team made up of top players out of Ottawa area and Toronto Red Wings). This was going to be another one of those matches similar to the CAN AM game where many of the kids played together or against each other in normal winter season. Actually three of the Local Hero’s boys played with the Beast in the Montreal Repentigny tournament so we had no secrets to hid from these guys. Local’s came on strong and played the most physical game we had to date. The boys were large and finished their checks. Local opened up the scoring and looked like they might hold it over the 30-minute game. With time ticking down and a late power play on the table the Beast scored with a couple minutes left to even things up and finish out the regular time at a 1-1 tie. The over time period would be 5 minutes with four on four hockey. We moved big Zach G up front to add some size on the four on four and he respond by adding some crushing checks in the offensive zone and causing a turn over leading to a booming point shot by Jon into the open net with 38 seconds left in the over time period. The kids piled onto the ice and celebrated the win and advancement to the final four. Unfortunately we lost Jeffrey in the game due to a bruised MCL and Zach A was down with the flu and playing on half cylinders.
CAN AM had beat out a tough Vancouver team to advance to the semi and once again we met up in the game of the titans. Playing CAN AM with 6.5 forwards was not going to be an easy task after already playing 6 games in 2.5 days and next to no break between the qtr. finals and semi’s. We moved one our 5 D's Chris L up front to help. They had 18 players through the tournament so we were sure they might be a little fresher at this point in the tournament. For the first half of the game we were all over them and had them taking bad penalties. The Beast poured it on and hit a goal post and a cross bar but couldn’t buy an early goal. Disheartened without finding the back of the net the boys took a couple penalties which led to a power play goal by CAN AM and an late game lead. Fatigue set in as the boys sensed that maybe a come back wasn’t in the cards this time. Despite encouragement by our team cheerleader Coach Mike, the boys couldn’t buy one and CAN AM sealed the deal with one more for a 2-0 win.

The Beast finished the tournament with the Bronze position with a 6 and 1 record. Beast also had the most goals for 33 and least goals against 9. No one team in the tournament went with an undefeated record. CAN AM went on to beat Connecticut Yankees 4-3 in the championship game. Both finished the tournament with records of 7 and 1.
Considering a team like the Boston Junior Bruins who last year won the Repentigny tournament didn't even break the top 16 shows the depth and quality of teams involved. Once again the Beasts rose to the occasion and are the talk of the tournament. Maybe we were an unknown team coming in but you can be assured there are no secrets now. The Beasts are for real. The coaches and parents are very proud of all the players for their determination, teamwork and all out effort needed to compete at this level.
Congratulations and hats off for putting yourself and your team on the map of the best of best in North America!