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Thunder dramatically win another peewee A tournament

With a flare for the dramatic once again, the Estevan McGillicky peewee Thunder won their second tournament in a row, this time on home ice.
Thunder
The Estevan McGillicky peewee Thunder and their coaches celebrate the home tournament win at Affinity Place.

With a flare for the dramatic once again, the Estevan McGillicky peewee Thunder won their second tournament in a row, this time on home ice.

Affinity Place Sunday afternoon saw a dramatic victory over in-town rival Estevan Tower Wolves, as the Wolves came back to tie the final game in the third period, only to have the Thunder come back with a goal of their own and an empty netter to seal the 5-3 win.

“In the final game we played really good,” said Thunder head coach Adrian Fraser. “We beat them with four lines and we rotated four lines steady. Our D-men played hard and the boys never gave up. They never quit.”

Despite being peewee teams in the same town, the Thunder and Wolves hadn’t played each other this season until Sunday.

“We were excited to play them,” said Fraser. “There’s a lot of former teammates on that team and former coaches that we played with. We were excited and pumped to play them and it was great to get the win.  

The Thunder’s Conrad Hase scored late in the second period to help his team to a 3-1 lead but the Wolves’ Tymur Maidanskyi and Hudson Hitalka scored to tie the game in the third.

Shortly after that tying goal, Hase scored again and then with Wolves’ goaltender Tyler Piper pulled, he shot from long range into the empty net to seal the win.

“I was so happy and surprised,” said Hase. 

Shea McNabb had the other goal for the Wolves and Dayton Fraser and Koen Turner scored the other goals for the Thunder. Cowan Ludtke got the win in net for the Thunder.

Two weeks ago, the Thunder won a tournament in Oxbow, with an equally dramatic final period. This time they went undefeated in four games en route to a home tournament win.

They started in the round robin with a 7-1 win over the Regina Falcons and a 7-5 win over the Moose Jaw Stars.

“That Moose Jaw game we thought we would whoop them but we almost lost,” said Hase. “After that we got right back in it against Weyburn and I got my first hat trick.”

They battled the Weyburn Kinsmen Wings and won 8-5 in the quarterfinal before a 7-4 semifinal win over Yorkton Marks Terriers in the semifinal.

Hase got hat tricks in games against Weyburn and Yorkton before his three-goal performance against the Wolves.

“Coming on the ice we got the go ahead goal and then they started to come back,” said Hase. “After the second intermission we got back at it in the third period and we kept on grinding.”

Fraser was happy with his team’s performance throughout the tournament.

“We’ve been rolling four lines all year and they just keep coming and coming,” said Adrian Fraser. “They never take a shift off and our defence is always steady and staying at home. Our goaltending was great too, all tournament long.”

The Wolves beat Yellow Grass 10-4 and Prairie Storm 11-3 in the round robin, and then knocked off the Brandon Avalanche (score unavailable) in the quarterfinal and the Estevan Tarpon Energy Storm 8-4 in the semifinal.

The Storm only lost the one game in the tournament as well, after winning 12-0 over the Regina Tigers and 9-2 over Brandon in the round robin and then 8-1 over Yellow Grass in the quarterfinal.