Schedule & Results, Bantam AE, U15, 2011-2012 (Petrolia Minor Hockey)

The Oilers knew going into this tilt that this was going to be the most difficult game of the tournament.  This was only the second game of the tournament for Caledonia.  Caledonia won its first game 7-1 in its cross pool member game.
The Oilers were short Alex Mayhead due to the Woolwich organization altering a signed game sheet after the sheet was turned in by the officiating crew.
Petrolia started slowly out of the gate in this game quickly finding themselves down a couple goals in the first period.  The Thunder are an excellent positional team that plays a physical style of play.  The Oilers were down 3-1 after the first period, and 4-1 after the second period.  This game was closer than the scoreboad was showing as the Oilers outplayed the Thunder for good stretches of the 1st and 2nd periods.  The Thunder looked to be getting tired and in the 3rd period the Oilers dominated play.
In the 3rd period there was a fantasic goal scored by Nic Freisen after numerous passes were made by Jarret Scarrow and Ryan Bell.  This was likely one of the nicest goals scored in the entire tournament as the Oilers spread out, took thier time and passed the puck around until Nic became open in the high slot position.  The Oilers had the game to 5-3 and were pressing with 9 minutes remaining but could not find the back of the net again.  The Thunder had a great single handed effort by a forward player who outworked 2 Oiler players and had a goal scorers goal shooting the puck up and over Matt Kuipers into the top of the net.  This ended the comeback and the tournament for the Oiler team.
It should be noted that the Oilers have been playing excellent hockey this past few weeks and have been up against some very high level competition as they lost 2-0 in a close game to Strathroy in the St. Marys tournament with St. Marys winning the tournament and this weekend losing this close game to the Thunder who also went on to win the tournament.
Great work team.  We have some time off as this has been a very busy couple of weeks.  We have 2 practices before big league games against league leading Mt. Brydges and the Ilderton Jets the following week.  Keep up the work ethic.