The stars will shine bright in St. Albert at the John Reid Memorial Tournament.
The talent rich 16-team bantam AAA hockey tournament starts Thursday morning at Servus Credit Union Place.
“It’s a big moment for not only the team but for the city,” said Mark Matsuba, captain of the host St. Albert Gregg Distributors Sabres.
The 34th annual invitational showcase event features teams from across Western Canada and the highly touted Los Angels Selects. The 42-game schedule wraps up with Sunday’s final at 2 p.m.
“The guys are all excited for the tournament. It’s in front of the home crowd and it’s really hyped up,” said goalie Pat Dea.
Thursday in pool play the Sabres face-off against the Notre Dame Hounds at 10:45 a.m. and Los Angeles at 7:30 p.m. at Performance Arena.
Their last game before the playoffs is Friday at 2:15 p.m. against the Cloverdale Colts at Performance Arena.
“We’re going to try and play our best every game and hopefully we win it,” Dea said. “If we don’t win it’s not going to be the downfall of our season, but if we do win it would be a huge confidence boost going into playoffs.”
The Sabres tried to maintain a low-key approach while counting down the days before the tournament opener.
“We’re just trying to get prepared and not make such a big deal about it because usually that’s when pressure starts to build up and you kind of perform at a lower level,” said Matsuba, a 14-year-old defenceman with 10 goals in 27 games.
The last major tournament for the Sabres was in Medicine Hat last November. The Sabres finished 3-2 after dropping a 2-1 decision to the North Shore Winter Club Winterhawks of Vancouver. The Winterhawks are entered in the Reid tournament.
“In some games this year we’ve had real highs, like North Shore. They’re supposed to be the best team in the west,” Matsuba said. “We brought our game up a lot when we started playing North Shore and we got to a level where our potential is, but I still think we can get a little bit higher than that.”
In the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League the Sabres (17-4-6) are third in the nitro north division and are ranked fifth overall in points in the 22-team circuit.
“We’re feeling good about ourselves. We’ve had some good practices and some good games,” Dea said.
The Sabres trail the first-place SSAC Southgate Lions (20-4-3) by three points and are one point back of the second-place Sherwood Park Flyers (19-4-3) in the division standings.
On home ice recently the Sabres downed the Flyers 3-1 and settled for a 4-4 draw against the Lions after beating them twice earlier in the season.
“We seem to play really, really good against the top teams like South Side and Sherwood Park. They have some real strong players on their teams and so do we,” said Dea, 14.
The Sabres are undefeated in four games after Sunday’s 5-2 win against the Maple Leafs (6-20-1) at Millwoods Arena. Stephan Cretain potted a pair and Joshua Mahura had one goal and two assists. Ethan Lazaro and Bradley Holmes also scored in support of netminder Matt Murray’s 35 saves.
“It was a good game. It gave us a little bit of extra confidence before the tournament. It got our heads prepared mentally for it. It also helped us touch up our game play a little bit and stay disciplined to the team structure,” Matsuba said.
Leading the offensive charge for the Sabres is Matteo Gennaro with 21 goals and 38 points in 25 games and Lazaro with 18 goals and 35 points in 27 games. Curtis Peck’s 21 assists in 26 games is a team high.
“Working as a team and having a presence every game is what we do best,” said Matsuba, a Grade 9 student at Vimy Ridge Academy.
The league’s fourth-best defensive team is stingy between the pipes with Dea (11-3-3, 2.47 GAA) and Murray (6-1-3, 2.70 GAA) splitting time in net.
“Normally Matty and I make the first save and then our defence clears it away for us,” said Dea, a Grade 9 student at Vincent J. Maloney School.
