By Graham Perkins /
The Juvenile A team is eager to get back on the ice and close out its successful season on a high note. The club defeated Coquitlam 5-1 before Christmas, but didn’t have a game before this past weekend against Richmond.
With one game left in the regular season, BWC found itself in second place of the seven-team Tier 3, not a bad accomplishment for a squad made up of a hodge-podge of BWC and Burnaby Minor players. Now the next big test will be seeing how they handle the pressure of the playoffs.
“We’re pretty excited and we’re still striving for the banner. When you work hard, good things happen,” said head coach Dan Melanson. “Wherever we go we’re going to play better teams, so we’re not disillusioned about that, but this is a pretty committed group of boys.”
Because they only formed this year, BWC started the season in Tier 4 but were bumped up to Tier 3 and have proved very capable of handling their opponents. The team missed a chance to gain some valuable ground on first-place Cloverdale when they were handed a 4-1 defeat in mid-December, but have still exceeded many pre-season expectations.
“The kids really enjoy coming to the ice. We’ve had 15 to 16 kids at practice and they’re enjoying themselves,” Melanson said.
The Christmas holidays gave the battered team a chance to get healthy, and they should have nearly everyone back by the time the puck drops in their first playoff game later
this month. |