It was two days of fun tournament action for young minor hockey players on Feb. 1-2 in Fort St. James.
A novice minor hockey tournament drew teams from Burns Lake, Houston, Fraser Lake and Vanderhoof to play against Fort St. James, which entered two teams into the tournament because there are so many players in the novice age group of 7-8 years old.
The tournament brought together 81 athletes for a total of 720 minutes of hockey, and 157 goals, and created “piles of smiles” according to Christie Hoy, one of the novice hockey moms.
Coach Jeremy Johnson said the teams played well and the kids had fun, which is the ultimate goal.
They are not allowed to have championship tournaments at this level of play, so there was no ranking for the teams, and instead, 24 players were awarded hustler awards to recognize their outstanding efforts and energy shown during play.
The hosts also managed to raise some money at their raffle table to go towards ice time and travel costs for minor hockey.
The fans scored some great raffle items including an iPad mini, Mikita tools, and a Tassimo coffee machine.
The White team from Fort St. James finished with three wins and one loss to Vanderhoof, and the Black team finished with two wins and two losses, losing to Vanderhoof as well.
Johnson said the great thing about playing in Fort St. James is the number of spectators who show up to watch the games, even if they don’t have kids in the tournament.
The game pictured against Vanderhoof saw Vanderhoof win the game 7-4, with Fort St. James’ Diego Johnson scoring two goals, Lakota Julian scoring one and Nate Frederick scoring one as well.