By Tina Comeau
THE VANGUARD
NovaNewsNow.com
These are busy times for the Yarmouth Consolidated Memorial High School Vikings hockey team.
League play in the regular season has ended, but the team is preparing for an all-star game this Friday and playoffs and a trip to a tournament in Montreal this month.
The Feb. 10 all-star game sees the Southwest High School Hockey League divided into Team South and Team West.
Team South will be comprised of players from Bridgewater, Liverpool and Barrington. Team West will be made up of players from Yarmouth and Par-en-Bas. The game gets underway at 8 p.m. at the Mariners Centre.
For the Vikings, the all-star game is significant for another reason. The team will wrap up its major fundraiser during the intermission between the second and third periods. The team has been selling tickets that will give two people the opportunity to shoot a puck for $50,000. Tickets are being sold up to Thursday evening and the winning tickets will be drawn Friday at noon.
“They have to make a shot from the far blue line, 114 feet away from the net, and they have to put the puck it in a hole in a piece of plywood that covers the net,” explains team coach Bob Cudmore. “The hole is just a little bit bigger than the size of the puck. If they make it there will be a lot of cheering.”
If the first person makes the shot they’ll get the money and the other person will get a consolation prize. If the first person fails to shoot the puck into the hole, the other person will have a chance at it.
Tickets are $30 each and are being sold by team players and families. They can also be purchased at the high school or by contacting Cudmore at 742-1847 or 749-6700.
The Vikings team has a league record this year of 26 wins and 10 losses. In speaking about the team’s strengths, Cudmore says the team’s size and maturity tops the list.
“We have a good strong team and we have good speed with that. We have a large number of Grade 12s this year, of which most of them have played for three years at this level and they understand what it takes to win a high school hockey game. They’ve also mentored along some of the younger guys. We’ve got a good strong set of leaders on the team to help us through the year.”
Among those who will be participating in this week’s all-star game is goaltender Mike MacDonald.
“I think that it is an honor to be a part of the all-star team and I'm very excited to play in it. I think it’s going to be very interesting to see how players from all different teams can come together and cope with each other,” he says. “I also want to see how we will do because we are going to have players playing with people that don't usually play with each other. All-in-all I'm very excited to be a part of it.”
MacDonald, who shares part of his time between the pipes with goalie Graham Rogers, is enjoying his season with the team.
“I think that this year’s squad works very well and I find we are a pretty good team, and by that I mean we work well with each other and help each other out and do a lot of team activities,” says MacDonald, who considers the work of the forwards to be one of the team’s strengths. He also says he loves the pressure in every game that comes with being a goalie.
“I think I got a bit of a confidence boost this year becoming the starter and I feel more comfortable in the net than last year,” he says.
Defenceman Luc Lacroix is another player who will compete in Friday’s all-star game. “As a first-year player it's a real honour to have been chosen to play in the all-star game,” he says, noting the coaches have worked very hard to get the players to this point.
He says playing on the high school squad this year has been a lot of fun.
“The team chemistry is very good. Right from the get-go the older players made the younger ones feel welcomed. The level of hockey is fast, challenging and fun,” says Lacroix.
“The team this year is strong. We play well as a unit. We have a lot of experienced fowards as well as strong defensive lines.”
Beyond the all-star game, playoffs are also on the team’s to-do list.
“Right now Division 3 schools are playing off to have a Division 3 champion in our league,” says Cudmore. “Barrington and ourselves are playing a best of five in February to determine the Division 2 champion. If time permits well have the two teams play off as a league champion.”
The team will also be traveling this month to an invitational tournament in Montreal that will see teams from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario and parts of the United States competing.
“We’re hoping to see some new competition and judge ourselves against high schools from across the country and the States,” says Cudmore.
The team has done well in tournaments this season. They’ve played in five tournaments and have made it to the championship game of four of them. The team won the league’s early bird tournament and also won the Cook’s Cup that it hosted in December.
The dates of the Montreal tournament are Feb. 17-19.
