The Hazelton Bandit’s Women’s Hockey team has wrapped up a very successful season this past weekend with their fundraising St. Patrick’s Day dance on Saturday night and a Men’s Draft Hockey tournament.
The dance which was held to raise money to purchase much needed uniforms was a success on many level’s.
They raised money, had more than 200 people attend the dance which was peaceful with no altercations and a great time was had buy all according to team player Pam Tait.
“The dance was a great success, lots of people donated time, money and products and everyone had a lot of fun,” she said.
“We hope to have another fundraiser dance in the fall at the start of our season to help out with our additional costs as well as raise money for our home tournament we hope to host early in the season.”
As for the tournament they played in, there were five teams, four of which were
all men and the Bandits added goaltender Cory Croft, forward’s Landon Vipond, Al Tolmie and Cassie along with defencemen Brad Sebastian and Skye Jones to their team of nine ladies.
The Bandits team started out on Friday night with their first game and although it remained close for the first half, they fell 6-3.
Saturday brought three more hard fought battles of which they won two, taking a 10-4 victory in game 1, a 5-3 loss in game two and a 4-1 win in game three.
Sunday was the semi-finals wherethey battled it out in one end to end game.
Leading 4-2 in the last ten minutes, they lost some ground as their opponents fought back to tie it with only three minutes remaining.
With less than two minutes left, the other team got the go-ahead goal.
Yet, the Bandits weren’t done yet and with four seconds on the clock, Al Tolmie hammered in the tying goal to force the shoot out.
After three shooters the score was still tied.
The fourth shooter for the opposing team missed which opened the door for the Bandits team and Olivia Wolfenden was able to drill in the winning point forthe 6-5 win.
This then put the team in to the battle for first with no time between games.
They played the first team they lost against on Friday night who had gone undefeated all weekend and despite a great effort, they could not take away the first place title and fell 8-4 to capture second place.
All the Bandits wanted to thank the six men who worked so hard and played great hockey with them on the weekend and they said it has inspired them and they would like to host a Buck And Doe tournament in early October next year.
“It was a great way to end a great year,” Tait said. “We look forward to next year!”