This past weekend five North Bay & District Girls Hockey Association teams kicked off their seasons with early bird tournaments.
The U18AA Junior Lakers headed to the Stoney Creek Showcase tournament, the U18AA team was unable to advance to the medal round. They faced off against teams from Oakville, Ontario Hockey Academy, Greater Vancouver (British Columbia), and Winnipeg in the round robin. In their consolation game the U18AA team earned a 2-0 win over the Anaheim Lady Ducks.
The U11A, U15BB, U15A, and U18A teams headed to the Markham-Stouffville Stars Fest 12th Annual Tournament. This tournament proves to be extremely challenging to advance out of round robin play as for all divisions except U18A only the top 2 teams advance to the championship after a 5 game round robin.
The U15A team needed to finish in first or second overall coming out of round robin play to earn a birth to the championship game in a tough five-game round robin format.
To open the tournament the U15A Junior Lakers took on the Michigan Metro Junior Jets where they skated to a convincing 7-0 win. In game two the Jr.Lakers faced the host in a closer match-up earning a 2-1 victory over Markham.
On day two the Jr.Lakers would earn a convincing 5-1 victory over the Scarborough Sharks, before defeating the Toronto Leaside Wildcats 7-0. These two victories on Saturday would earn the U15A team a place in the championship game with one round robin game left to play Sunday morning.
On Sunday morning, the Jr.Lakers would start the day vs the Whitby Wolves where they earned a 5-0 win to round out the round robin portion of the tournament with a 5-0-0 record. The Junior Lakers out scored their opponents 26-2 as they headed into the championship game.
In the Gold Medal Game, the Junior Lakers once again faced the Toronto Leaside Wildcats. The Wildcats only loss of the round robin portion of the tournament came from the North Bay squad. In the Championship Game, the Junior Lakers controlled the play earn on and went on to take home the championship banner after another 7 goal performance. North Bay would earn a 7-1 win over the Toronto Leaside Wildcats to earn the NBDGHA's first gold medal of the season.
The U15BB North Bay Junior Lakers had a successful weekend at Markham-Stouffville Stars Fest 12th Annual tournament.
On the first day of round robin play, the Junior Lakers U15BB team earned a 0-0 tie vs Oshawa and a 2-2 tie vs Barrie. As they headed into day two they dropped a close game 1-0 to the host Markham-Stouffville Stars before downing the Niagara Rapids 6-0 to finish Saturday with a 1-1-2 record. As the Junior Lakers headed into Sunday they knew they needed a win to keep their championship hopes alive and they came out on top with a 3-0 win over the Mississauga Hurricanes to end the round robin portion of the tournament with 6 points.
In a close five-game round robin that saw a three way tie for second place the Junior Lakers proved to have the best plus-minus to find themselves in the championship game, which saw a rematch from their opening game with the Oshawa Lady Generals. The Jr.Lakers were able to score 1 goal in the championship and hold on for a close 1-0 win over the Lady Generals to return to North Bay as tournament champions.
