Hockey Team Keeps Heads High After Disappointing Loss

Seven schools including Bishops, Heritage, John Rennie, Kuper, Loyola, Selwyn along with our hosts, battled for supremacy in the Stanstead hockey tournament from February 20-22. The tournament was a very competitive event, with each team playing two games before moving on to the quarter-finals.

Selwyn House played their first game on Thursday at 5:00 vs. Loyola - a classic rivalry. With a shortened bench due to many injuries, Selwyn House really had to compete to bring a good game. It was close from the puck drop,, with a lot of back and forth play. After about 8 minutes of fast-paced hockey, Anthony Catalogna scored the first goal of the game, setting the Gryphons off to a good start. Unfortunately, Loyola bounced back and scored 3 minutes later, and then a second one with 6 minutes left in the first period. No more goals were scored that period and the players returned to the locker room while the ice was prepared for period 2. The second period got underway, and Loyola scored 4 minutes in. One minute later, Matt Avedesian scored a goal for Selwyn, making it a 3-2 game for Loyola. Loyola replied quickly with 2 more goals giving them a 3 goal lead. After lots of penalties from both teams, Sebbie Johnson scored to shorten the goal differential, giving the Gryphons a little more hope to win. Unfortunately, that hope was lost when Loyola put another one in 4 minutes later. The final result of the game was a disheartening 6-3 for Loyola.

On Friday , Selwyn had two more games to play. The first one against Kuper Academy, followed by the Quarterfinals vs. TBD. Game one got underway at 9:30, and Kuper came out strong. The first period was a clean 4-0 blowout for them, with no goals from Selwyn and no penalties between the two teams. Period 2 was much better for Selwyn, with Sebbie Johnson stepping up for the team and scoring 2 goals. Although the second period was very close, Selwyn didn’t have enough to come back from the 4-0 deficit. The final score was 6-2 for Kuper.

Because the Gryphons had lost their first 2 games, they played the 2nd ranked team in the tournament for the Quarterfinal game, John Rennie. As usual, Selwyn got off to a good start, with Ben Katz scoring the first goal 5 minutes into the first period. The boys had good energy and were playing well, but John Rennie managed to score 3 minutes later followed by another one in under a minute. This caused a huge momentum shift and John Rennie scored one more before the end of the first period, making the score 3-1. Once again, Selwyn came out to start the second period strongly, with Anthony Catalogna scoring 4 minutes in. It was a 3-2 game for most of the second period, and the Gryphons were battling it out as hard as they could to tie the game up. Unfortunately, John Rennie managed to put a fourth goal in with 8 minutes left in the game, taking a 2 goal lead. Despite the boys’ efforts to get back in the game and send it to overtime, they couldn’t tuck one in. The Gryphons lost 4-2 in the Quarter Finals, going home earlier than they had wished to. Although the outcome of all three games wasn’t the best, it was a very fun tournament with lots of great adversaries. Skilled adversaries and good competition make for fun tournaments even when they don’t turn out the way you’d like.