RYAN WILLMAN
Arrow Lakes News
The barn was full. The boys were back in town. The Falcon Cup was all filled up for the champs to win the drink. Oh, the good ‘ol hockey game.
The Nakusp arena hosted the 3rd annual Falcons Cup on December 20-21. Organized by local champion Mark Macaulay along with an army of volunteers, the hockey tournament played host to an exclusive mix of Nakusp Minor hockey alumni and local players who maintain an address in the greater Nakusp area. The event also acts as a fundraising vehicle with the goal of supporting the continued success of minor hockey in Nakusp.
At the registration deadline, 80 hockey players were signed up and ready to strap on the pads. Friday night hosted five pairs of goalies and captains who conducted a private draft in the depths of the Three Lions and sorted the motley crew into teams, a tradition that adds the edge of NHL chimera to the event. Later that night, the draft results were posted and the long awaited team names were announced: Jamie Coates and Mark Macaulay — Team Red. Riley Weatherhead and Gord Marshall — Team Grey. Chad Hicks and Brodie Yano — Team Black. Tristin Sinclair and Ryan Struck — Team White. Dallas Sinclair and Taylor Reitmeier — Team Green.
The format of the tournament was a head-scratching five-team round robin that used a point system of goals for and goals against to sort out the road to the final. At the conclusion of the first day of hockey, Team Green muscled their way into a first place standing by defeating Team Red 11-4 and Team Grey 4-0. Their performance afforded Team Green a pass through the quarter final round and into the semi final. Second place Team White and third place Team Grey also earn bys through the quarter-final and into the semi-final round.
Simply put, the first day of action did not eliminate any team from contention in the finals as the bottom two teams still maintained an avenue of success that would take them through a quarter final into a semi final berth. The route, however, is somewhat disadvantageous as fifth place Team Red and fourth place Team Black were facing a potential mountain of three games to get to the cup while the other three teams had earned a game rest.
Undaunted, Team Black set to work, trudging one mile at time, one goal at a time, and managed to slog through the quarter final against Team Red with a score of 6-0 and advanced to play the semi against first place Team Green.
Donning red jerseys due to a color conflict, Team Black snatched an early lead utilizing their game played momentum to catch the still groggy Team Green off-guard. However, realizing elimination was at stake the Green squad rallied themselves after the halftime ice scrape and charged out the dressing room unwilling to go gently into that black night. Back and forth the players battled across the ice and at the sound of the buzzer the game hung in the balance at five goals apiece. Overtime: this was to be the only game of the tournament that couldn’t force a decision during regulation and each team stepped to the ice with glory on their minds.
The frenzied play did not take long to materialize into a game-winning goal as a scramble in front of the Green Team net afforded clinch-time player Terryn Stenseth just enough room to jam the puck home for the big W.
Choosing to stick with the jersey change, Team Black donned the red jerseys once again and found themselves looking across the ice at Team White, who earned their final showing by defeating Team Grey 6-2.
The action on the ice was thunderous with 61 shoots combined yielding 2 goals for Team Black and only 1 for Team White. With just over 60 seconds left on the clock Team White pushed Team Black into their defensive zone and pulled goaltender Ryan Struck off the ice for the extra attacker. With their backs against the wall, Team Black maintained a defensive line against the thrashing offensive juggernaut of Team White. Desperate and working against the dying seconds of the clock, Team White threw everything they could at the net, but could not bang one in to tie the game. The final buzzer sealed the fate of Team White and elevated Team Black in their red jerseys to 2014 glory.
During the cup ceremony Mark Macaulay handed out several other honors including the Mr. Old-timer award to Bob Treheme (who celebrated his 69th birthday with a rousing Happy Birthday sung by the arena crowd), Top Scorer to Dallas Sinclair (finished the tournament with 5 goals and 3 assists) and the Mr. Inspirational award to Chad Hicks (Captain of Team Black). Zac Wethal also recognized the heroic efforts of Mark Macaulay for being instrumental in the facilitation, organization and success of the Falcons Cup Hockey Tournament by awarding Macaulay the Unsung Hero award.
Macaulay thanked Zac Wethal for “being a main organizer and making sure the tournament has run smoothly for the last three years.” Macaulay also recognized a number of other key members of the volunteer crew; “Donna Rebman, Mary and Sarah Hamling and Kimberly Macaulay for working the beer gardens. Val Scott and Kyle Kusch for working the time box and keeping the stats and also Nakusp Minor Hockey. We also had an amazing reffing team of Hans Suhr, Colton Dachwitz, Dougan McInnes and Greyson Reitmeier. Thanks also to KJ O’Conner for supplying all the teams with Gatorade and to all of the local businesses for supplying the items for the raffle table. Finally, thank you to the community for coming out and supporting this event.”