Feb 26, 2023 | Brent LaForge | 85 views
A Very Odd Oakridge Classic
This tournament didn’t go as well as we hoped, but it was a tournament like none else with other factors shifting the momentum.
Each tournament we have participated in this year has seemingly had the same first game result: unfortunate losses, notwithstanding being evenly matched with our opponents. And in each tournament we seemed to run out of gas in the third. What makes our first game loss in this tournament different was that we found ourselves in the path of a referee who…hmmmm….didn’t appear to like our team? I know that sounds ridiculous, and like an excuse. This is different. I don’t know how the players feel, but as a parent and fan, I can accept losses if the game is fair. The third period of Game 1 against the Welland LL2 team was a foreshadowing of what was to come in Game 2 with the same ref.
I have never seen anything like what I witnessed in our Game 2 loss to the Erie North Shore Storm Gold team. The ref seemed to forgot that penalties are generally only 2 minutes. Non-major penalties were being served at 4 minutes with no reasonable explanation. I see now from the game sheet that all of the penalties that we incurred, with the exception of the last one, were double penalties and so many penalties were “missed” by the ref. But the officiating became absolutely ridiculous when one of our players received a major, 2-game suspension for, what I witnessed, was lightly tapping an opponent’s helmet with his glove, and Coach Brent being “voluntold” to leave the bench when trying to explain to our penalized player what the penalty was for. And I believe I heard that the other team was warned regarding cheering or something? What…the…heck?? Forget pee in cornflakes; seems like this particular ref was born on the wrong side of delivery room!
Our A9 Aeros put the bad experience behind them (and we were fortunate to not have this ref for our final game) to persevere against the North London Nationals A9 team, 2-1.
Silver linings? What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, there is so much to learn from losses and adversity, we had every right to hold our heads high and the tournament for us ended on a positive note with a win!
I’m a proud Mom, spectator and team manager who really loves this team!
❣️ 🏒 ❣️ 🥅 ❣️
-N. MacLean