Newfoundland Night

Newfoundland Night Kicks Off The Chronicle Herald East Coast IceJam Tournament
 
Wednesday, January 8^th is the opening night of the Chronicle Herald IceJam Tournament.  This tournament is one of the few in Canada which has both Major Midget and Major Bantam divisions playing at the same sports centre at the same time.  The up and coming talented hockey players will be well watched closely by over 100 scouts in attendance as they try and identify players for the QMJHL, MHL, US College, and Prep Schools.  At the Major Midget level, 19 of the 20 Atlantic Canada Major Midget hockey teams will be participating while 20 of the 27 Major Bantam teams are registered to play including one Quebec team from Riviere-du-Loup.  Altogether, there will be over 90 hockey games for fans to enjoy over the five day event at the BMO Centre in Bedford.  Opening night of the tournament will feature games between Newfoundland Major Midget teams and local Major Midget teams from Dartmouth, Cole Harbour and Halifax.  The Halifax McDonald’s open the tournament with a game against the St. John’s Maple Leafs at 5 pm at the BMO centre.  The Newbridge Academy Gladiators follow with a 7:15 pm game against the Western Kings and the Cole Harbour Pro Hockey Life Wolfpack close the evening with a 9:00 pm game against the Central Ice Pak.  The Newfoundland Major Midget Hockey League standings are led by the St. John’s Maple Leafs and the Central Ice Pak with 15 and 14 wins, respectively, after 20 games.  The Central Ice Pak has the league’s top scorer in Jordan Maher (21 goals) and top goaltender, Noah Weir, while the Maple Leafs have sniper Andrew Paul (16 goals) and second-rated goaltender Brandon Short.   The Western Kings are a respectable 3^rd place with 10 wins and feature 3 of the league’s top 5 scorers in Jordan King, Jordan Richards and Shannon Moores.  The evening’s match ups will be most entertaining as they feature the top 3 teams in each of the respective NS and NF Major Midget Hockey Leagues.  The Major Bantam game of the evening will feature the local Bubba Ray’s Gulls playing against the Moncton Blue Water Mobil Hawks.  The Gulls and Moncton Hawks are both in first place in their respective NS and NB Major Bantam league standings.
 
The round robin phase of the IceJam tournament will continue Thursday and Friday and will feature some key hockey games.  On Thursday, the Newbridge Academy Gladiators and the Halifax McDonalds’s continue their match ups with Newfoundland teams as the Gladiators play the St. John’s Maple Leafs at 1:00 pm and the Macs play the Western Kings at 5:00 pm.  However, the game of the day may belong to the Cole Harbour Pro Hockey Life Wolfpack as they take on the defending IceJam Champions, the Moncton Flyers.  Moncton is near the top of the NB-PEI Major Midget League standings and, similar to Cole Harbour, play a high-scoring offensive brand of hockey with both teams averaging 5 goals per game.  Moncton Flyers’ Ryan Chiasson and Liam Conrad are both in the top 5 of league scorers and match up well against Cole Harbour’s Nick Bruce and Cooper Boyd.  This game will be the critical game in the round robin for each team, as both compete to win their division and a favorable matchup in the quarterfinals.
Friday will conclude the tournament’s round robin games.  The Miramichi Rivermen will have a challenging day as they face the Halifax McDonald’s at 11:00 am followed by a game against the Newbridge Academy Gladiators at 7:00 pm.  The Miramichi Rivermen are tied for first place with the St. John Vitos in the NB-PEI league standings and will pose a stern test for both the Macs and the Gladiators.  These final round robin games will be critical for all three teams, as they each try to finish first in their respective divisions.  The game of the day may again go to the Cole Harbour Wolfpack as they take on the St. John Vitos at 9:00 pm.  This match up represents a battle between two first place clubs in their respective Major Midget leagues.  Three players from the Vitos’ roster, Jean-Michel LeBlanc, Curtis Hastings and Logan Saunders, are among the league’s top five scorers.  The Vitos have played both the Macs (2-3 Loss) and the Gladiators (6-1 Win) this season, but have yet to play the Wolfpack.  Playing at a critical point in the IceJam round robin will make their first meeting an exciting and impactful one.  At the Major Bantam level, the Bedford Barons take on the Moncton Hawks on Friday at 3:00 pm.
 
The elimination phase of the IceJam Tournament will include the top 16 Major Midget teams and the top 16 Major Bantam teams from round robin play.  Beginning at 9:00 Saturday morning, the 1st place teams will play #16, the 2^nd place teams will play #15 and so on.  Quarterfinal games will begin at 7:00 pm and feature the winners of these earlier matchups.  The tournament will conclude on Sunday with semi-final games at 9:00 am and the Midget Championship game at 2:00 pm and the Bantam Championship game at 3:00 pm.  All scores, statistics and team standings can be followed on the IceJam website (http://icejam.ca/) or on twitter @EastCoastIceJam.
 
Contributed by Daniel Marsh