The spotlight turned on North Ayrshire Ice Hockey Club’s youngest hot shots at the weekend for part two of the Sam Wallace Memorial tournament.
North Ayrshire’s U13s and U18 teams welcome rivals Ayr Bruins, Belfast Giants, Murrayfield, Whitley Bay, Lanarkshire Lightning, Scotland Girls Development, Dundee Stars & Caledonian Globetrotters to Auchenharvie for two days of virtually non-stop action.
And while there was no trophy this time round for the host club, the u13 Stars and U18 Devils made it as far as the semi-finals.
Each age group competed in round robin games on Saturday and Sunday morning to decide the line-up for the last four and the Stars found themselves facing off against Murrayfield.
A good start for Stars saw them press the Murrayfield defence hard but they just couldn’t find a way past net-minder Ryan Hay.
Jack Adams showed them the way to goal with four deadly strikes before Stars clawed back two goals with some excellent team play.
The Devils suffered an agonising 7-6 defeat on penalty shots after their semi against Dundee Stars finished 2-2 in regulation time.
Ayr Bruins won the U9s event, Lanarkshire Lightenening were the U11 champions and a Caledonaian Globetrotters side featuring players from North Ayr, Murrayfield, Fife, Solway, Dundee and Canada who have at one time played in Scotland teams for their age groups, beat Dundee Stars 2-1 in the U18s final.
Five North Ayrshire players made the All Star Dream Team. They were netminder Kyle Wedegren (U9s); Forward Lennon Deeney (U13s); Defenceman Jack Neil, who was one of the youngest members of the Globetrotters and forwards Zak Kenneth and Haydn Woods (U18s).
Over the two weekends, a total of 414 goals were played over 75 games involving 29 teams.
A spokesman for North Ayrshire said: “Thanks to all the players for their efforts and impeccable behaviour over the weekends, everyone who came along to support their young stars and all the volunteers who made this tournament possible.”
