The Nakusp Falcons Peewee House team may have dug themselves a bit of a hole to start with, but they roared back with a vengeance to win last weekend’s six-team tournament at the Nakusp & District Sports Complex.
Coached by Rodney Volansky along with assistant Kylie Carson and manager Crystal Volansky, the Falcons were joined by the Salmon Arm Titans, Kelowna Hawks, Greater Trail Vipers, and two Nelson squads, the Leafs and Northstars.
Nakusp would face the Titans in the first of three round robin games; the Shuswap side would narrowly defeat Nakusp 5-4. Game two against local rivals the Nelson Leafs was even closer but still failed to produce a win for the locals with the game resulting in a 2-2 draw.
It would only be in the final round robin game that Nakusp was able to eke out a win, with Adam Volansky’s hat trick helping the Falcons defeat Kelowna 5-4 in a must-win game to qualify for the playoffs.
The top four teams in the round robin advanced to the playoffs. Nakusp would be seeded fourth and would meet the top-seeded Nelson Northstars, who had run roughshod over their three opponents in round robin play by a combined score of 23-4.
The Falcons shocked the Northstars right out of the gate with two goals in the first frame and never looked back. Only a Northstars goal with 24 seconds left in the game thwarted an Alex Roberts shutout as Nakusp pulled off the major upset 4-1. The second semifinal between Salmon Arm 2 and Nelson Leafs 3 resulted in an even larger upset with the underdog Leafs winning 8-2.
This set up a Leafs-Falcons rematch for the championship, where the Falcons completed the come-from-behind story.
Led by a hat trick from Anthony Maxinuk, Nakusp won with a dominant 8-4 victory to take the tournament. Maxinuk would lead all Falcons players in weekend scoring with 4G-6A followed by Adam Volansky with 7G.