The St. Albert Flyers skate into provincials as the North Cup champions in the Alberta Minor Midget AAA Hockey League.
The Flyers, Lloydminster Rage and SSAC Bulldogs will represent the north conference in the six-team tournament starting today in Calgary. The two finalists and third-place finishers in the north and south playoffs will compete for provincial honours.
The Flyers qualified for provincials by beating SSAC 4-3 in double overtime in Saturday’s semifinal at Bill Hunter Arena. Brett Van Os sniped the winner with 4:03 gone in the second extra period. Luke Wright-Mascotto and Brett Smythe drew assists.
Smythe tallied twice and Michael Bruni also connected in regulation time. The third period was scoreless. The shot count was 56-49 for the Flyers. Winning netminder Pat Gora gave up three goals on 25 shots in the middle period.
Sunday the Flyers beat the Rage 5-2 in the final at Bill Hunter. Paul Lovsin potted two goals and Smythe scored once and added two assists. Brendan Passek and affiliate Matteo Gennaro also notched singles and Van Os picked up two assists. Shots were 43-37 for the Rage. Gora recorded his fifth win in the playoffs while posting a 2.12 goals-against average.
In the north standings the Rage and Flyers (25-7-6) placed first and second, respectively, and SSAC (22-10-6) was fourth.
In the pool B round robin the Flyers racked up wins of 9-4 against the seventh-place KC Centennials (15-15-8), 4-1 against the fifth-place Spruce Grove Saints (20-12-6) and 5-2 against the third-place Leduc Oil Kings (23-11-4).
Smythe was the tournament’s top scorer with seven goals and 17 points in five games. Lovsin, the conference-scoring leader with 40 goals and 76 points in 37 games, had five goals and five assists in the playoffs.
St. Albert rinks skipped by Jamie King and Christina Monk will represent the St. Albert Curling Club at the Dominion Club men’s and women’s northern playdowns this weekend in Sherwood Park.
The first game for King’s line-up of Craig King, Ralph Killips and Brian Pfeifer is 8 a.m. Friday against Ray Tralnberg of the Saville Sports Centre.
Monk’s team of Lauren Jenkyns, Alison Howes and Laurie Schreiner plays Michele Aasgard of the Shamrock at 10:30 a.m. Friday.
Sunday’s finals are 2 p.m. in the A event and 6 p.m. in the B event. Winners advance to provincials.
Visit www.northernalbertacurling.com for schedules and results.
The last two years at northerns King finished 2-1 as the St. Albert club champion.
Last year the St. Albert championship rink of rink of Kathy Piper, Nicole Bellamy, Howes and Schreiner finished 0-3 at northerns.
