Kitimat midget girl’s hockey team has had the kind of successes teams only dream of for the first half of the 2010/11 season.
The season started in early October when the team went 4-0 to win the Terrace DQ ladies Ice Breaker tournament.
The final game was against Prince Rupert Raiders one of the most skilled Senior Female teams in the North.
And the Wolverines shut them out 3-0.
The next tournament, November 12-14 was in Terrace hosted by the Bantam Rec division.
The Wolverines went on to win games against Terrace 7-2, Hazelton 8-0, Burns Lake 6-0 and earned a spot in the finals against the Terrace peewee reps .
The game was fast paced action, but the bigger girls made it tough for the quick skating peewee reps to create any attack. The Wolverines went on to win the final game 4-1.
The Wolverines then traveled to Kamloops for their Midget Female tournament November 19-21 - this was their first tournament against girls teams of the same age. We knew our girls were very good, but the questions remained. After the first game it was clear these Wolverines were special.
They cruised through the round robin beating Golden 21-0 , Kamloops 7-0 , Kelowna 5-0 and, in a semi-final game, Meadow Ridge 6-0.
The only player not happy on the Kitimat squad was the 12-year-old goalie prodigy Kelsey Roberts who was sporting a goals against of .084 for the whole season! She was not getting any shots as the Kitimat defense was like a wall.
That would all change in the finals against Port Alberni. Both teams had walked through their respected pools easily.
The game was a tight affair, Port Alberni scoring late in the second to take a one goal lead into the third.
Olivia Wolfenden (Hazelton import) scored for the Wolverines to take the game to overtime. Overtime was end-to-end action 4 on 4, but no goals.
The game went to a shoot out where Kelsey Roberts stopped all five shots taken by Port Alberni and the lone goal scored by Casey Gero was all Kitimat needed to take home the trophy
The Wolverines traveled to Prince George December 3-5 to play in a Bantam AAA female tournament. These teams are some of the best from BC and Alberta.
And the Wolverines had their hands full. Starting off against Lloyd Minister with 0-0 tie, the Wolverines then suffered their first loss of the season 2-1 against Kelowna.
It was so strange to lose that the girls did not know how to react after the game - they were stunned.
With little time to regroup Kitimat had to face the host PG team. The game was dominated by PG, but goalie Kelsey Roberts was unbeatable helping the Wolverines to win 3-0 to earn a spot in the semi-finals against PG again.
The game was much more even and after 60 minutes it was all tied at two. The shoot out was played out in front of a full house. After both teams went through 9 shooters each, only one goal was scored each.
Kitimat hopes were kept alive by Alexandra Galamini as a slow roller found the net. Then Rachel Penner, one of the Wolverines top defenseman but limited in the offense department, finally scored on a shot that barely crossed the line to win the game.
The next challenge was to beat Kelowna in the finals. The game was fast, aggressive and with the clock winding down and under a minute to play Shelby Roberge turned over a puck in the neutral zone, skated in and took a shot that found an opening to make the final 2-1 and the third straight tournament win for the Kitimat Wolverines.
It was a very busy first half of the season for the Wolverines. With a pre-Christmas break record of 23-2-2, the girls showed they are for real this season.
Coming up the girls have a home and home series against the Prince Rupert Ladies this weekend in Kitimat and March 20-21 in Rupert.
The final tournament will be the Richmond Ice Classic March 25-27.