PeeWee A Hawks golden in Lake Place CAN-AM tournament

December 6, 2018 · 0 Comments

Written By JAKE COURTEPATTE

Despite heading south of the border for some American on-ice competition, it was against a fellow Canadian squad that the Caledon PeeWee A Hawks squeaked out a gold medal win in a dramatic finish.

It took four overtimes for the Hawks to topple the Kanata Blazers in the championship game of the CAN-AM Challenge Cup in late November, a prestigious tournament drawing competition from across North America to Lake Placid, New York.

The 4 – 3 win was a much different story for the Hawks from the preliminary rounds, where they walked over their competition by a total score of 30 – 9.

Facing the Southshore Seahawks out of Massachusetts in the tournament’s opening game, the Hawks took to the Olympic Centre ice in an 11 – 2 drubbing, followed later that afternoon by a 9 – 2 win over the close-to-home opponent of the Markham Islanders.

After taking down the New York-bases Syracuse Blazers on the tournament’s second day, the stage was set for the championship game with Kanata.

Nathan Belo scored twice, while Matteo Acocella added one of his own to tie the game at three by the end of regulation. Evan Greco, Logan Cassidy, and Marco Sousa contributed helpers to send the game to a sudden-death overtime.

Despite the three-on-three nature of extra time, it took four periods before Belo completed his hat trick to take the game and the championship, off a feed from Tyler Cherry.

Carter Thomson was instrumental in the final game to take the gold medal for the Hawks.

Team head coach Donny Baldassarra said it was the team’s “commitment to hard work this season, that finally paid off” in capturing their first gold medal of the season.

“I’m very proud of the boys.”

Congratulations to Matthew Carleton, Tyler Cherry, Logan Cassidy, Matteo Acocella, Carter Thomson, Seth Cerveira, Noah Belille, Jack Cation, Evan Greco, Nathan Belo, Christian Anzelmo, Marco Sousa, David Zurek, David Paolucci, Andrew Baldassarra, Matteo Fabiano, Hayden McKee, Head Coach Donny Baldassarra, Assistant Coach Peter Greco and Mark Cation, and Trainer Richard Belo on the achievement.