Submitted by Kevin Stanek and Ashley Gamache
The U11 Lumby Stars – Team Garratt came out victorious once again, bringing home the Tournament winning banner! The Stars headed to Kamloops for the U11 Atom Blast Tournament from January 26th to 28th. Sixteen teams met to make 4 pools of round robin play. Teams came from all over to battle it out (Armstrong/Enderby, Chilliwack, Kamloops, Kelowna, Lillooet, Lumby, Merritt, Salmon Arm, Semiahmoo, Vernon, West Kelowna and Williams Lake). The Stars were clicking from beginning to the end of the tournament going undefeated with two shut outs including the final gold medal match! Our Lumby Stars faced the Kamloops Hell Cats on Friday and took the win,12-4. Saturday started with a very early game at 6AM against the West Kelowna Snipers and the Stars pulled out a win, 9-3. That afternoon, they played the Lillooet Pistons and won by a landslide of 14-0; sending the Stars to the semi-finals on Sunday. That morning they faced the Chilliwack Vipers and it was their toughest battle yet. The Stars pulled out yet another win, of 8-4, placing them in the Gold medal game later that day. The final match vs the Semiahmoo Hat Tricks, “a team from the coast”, was shaping up to be a good battle as both teams were undefeated going into gold medal match. Although exhausted from a very busy weekend, the Stars didn’t let up. They took an early lead with 2 goals to end the first period. Semiahmoo did not back down in the second period, but the stars defense and hard back checking forwards was too much to handle. The Stars added another goal in the second period, making it 3-0 going into the third. It was a constant battle but our Stars kept the pressure on. With minutes left in the game, Semiahmoo pulled their goalie and our Stars managed to ice the puck into the net making the final score 4-0. The gloves and sticks covered the ice as the Stars celebrated their 2nd tournament victory (first being at their home tournament earlier this month). Our Stars were ecstatic to take home the top prize gold medals and a banner. The main motto for the weekend was have fun, work hard, and pass the puck and these young kids did it all! The coaches, parents and fans could not be more proud of each and everyone of our shining Stars!
