Novice Kings head to finals

PORT HOPE — The young Kings won on the road tonight.  They have swept the Port Hope Phantoms in their Semi-final series.  The score was 1-0 on a beautiful wrist-shot from the point by Ethan Abrams, after a feed from then-defence partner Jasper Gilbert.  The story was again one of defence by all the players.  The Phantoms brought their ‘A game’ and the Kings were showing some fatigue.  It was not as pretty as the weekend, but the end result was the same – a “W”.

It was a penalty filled affair with 7 Kings penalties; and 4 Port Hope penalties.  The defence partnership of Ford Facette-Grondin and Jasper Gilbert are so close to each other than they decided to get tripping penalties in the final 5 minutes in solidarity.  Nic McGrayne left his crease twice and handled the puck more than half-way to the blue line.  He had some great saves, as usual.  The Kings knocked the monkey off their back with school night games.

The PH players were classy to a fault, wishing our guys good luck as they shook hands.  When we left they (PH Players) were having an old fashioned water fight in their dressing room.  Smiles all around.  It is great to be 8.  Our kids were classy too, no gloves thrown, just another TEAM moment around Nic that lasted a little longer than usual.

Game One was a 5-1 victory and Game Two saw the Kings up 5-2.

I think Coach Mike’s pre-game speech may have been a copyright infringement.  We will review the Sports Movie genre to see if he used any previously published material.  Either way it worked.

Team needs to regroup and get healthy.  But they are going to celebrate a little bit and practice Thursday night.  3 big games in 4 days is a lot.

Great memories were made.

Final word goes to goalie Nic.  “Where we going Nic?”  With a huge smile and a loud voice “we’re going to the Ontario Championship.”  Midland dispatched Bracebridge a while ago and have been waiting to see who they have next.  This group of kids may make believers yet out of a lot of people.  After finishing 5th and losing 7 of 8 to Port Hope who would have imagined a 3 up and 3 down.