North Stars crowned Steel City champions

The Soo North Stars have done something that they haven't done in nearly 15 years. The Triple-A Midget team won the Major Midget portion of the Steel City hockey tournament on Sunday afternoon.

After going 3-1 in the round robin portion of the tournament with shutout victories over the Green Bay Gamblers 2-0, the Geneva Cyclones 5-0, the Motor City Mechanics 4-0 and a loss to the Capital Centre Pride 2-1, the North Stars captured their respective division crown in a tiebreaker.

By way of their first place finish in Division A, the North Stars had a semi-final date with the Toronto (Markham) Majors. With a pair of power play goals, one from Dean Howard and Mike Rivard, in the final five minutes, the North Stars came away with a 3-2 victory to earn their berth in the finals.

The North Stars found themselves playing the Soo (Mich.) Indians, their same opponents from last season's Steel City final. The Indians beat out the Vaughan Kings, coach by Sooite Jason Fortier, 3-2 in double-overtime to earn their finals berth.

In the finals, the North Stars and Indians found themselves in a battle, similar to last year's 2-0 Indians victory.

After two scoreless periods, the North Stars opened the scoring in the third when Adam Pyymaki beat Soo Indians netminder Joe Dawson at 3:45.

Just seven seconds later Dan Vernelli converted a beautiful feed from Pyymaki on a two-on-one to give the North Stars a 2-0 lead that goaltender Ryan Dube and the North Stars would hold onto as they defeated the Indians 2-0 for their first Steel City Tournament championship since 1994.

The 1994 victory was the second of back-to-back titles for the North Stars, then known as Soo Legion.

"The number one thing is the kids play the game on the ice and these kids wanted it bad," said North Stars coach Mike Hall. "They're a pretty easy bunch to coach. They practice well. We've probably taken away some offensive ability from some guys because we're very stressful of the defensive zone coverage.

"I thought the biggest thing was (the Indians) were trying to send guys down the boards to hem us in our zone," Hall added. "And in the second half of the game it opened up the middle of the ice. That was a big difference. The other big difference was in the second half of the game we started to control the majority of the play."

The North Stars will be back to Great North Midget League action on Jan. 13th when they face the Valley East Cobras at the Raymond Plourde Arena in Valley East. The following day, the North Stars will be in Chelmsford to take on the Rayside Balfour Sabrecats.

*** MINOR MIDGET CHAMPIONSHIP:

The Capital Centre Pride got goals from Paul Davis and Jacob Johnstone as they defeated the Chicago Young Americans 2-0 for the AAA Minor Midget title.

The Pride, coached by John Bowkus, who was an assistant coach with the Soo (Mich.) Indians Jr. A hockey team for a time in the early-1990's, got a shutout performance from Kyle McMahon.

"It feels good," Bowkus said. "It's one of the tournaments that we set our goals to win the tournament. I think when this team came up here last year we had a rude awakening with the competition and stuff like that. We came out with some confidence this year and had a good tournament.

"One of the things we have is we have a deal going where each period is considered a game," Bowkus added, "and they only lost one period the whole time. It was nice to see these guys worked hard."

*** MIDGET AA CHAMPIONSHIP:

The Toronto East Enders capped off their dominant performance with a 6-0 blanking of Sault Ste. Marie's Northside Toyota.

Branden Collins had a pair of goals for Toronto while Tyler Robinson, Kevin Hyatt, Justin McLaren, and Ben Hunter added singles for Toronto.

Northside advanced to the championship game with a 3-1 win over the Sudbury Spitfires in the semi-finals. Jarrett Burton scored two goals for Toyota while Tanner Burton added the other.

TOURNAMENT PHOTOS WILL BE ADDED.