Dec 06, 2019 | jdisher | 272 views
Tigers Open Tourney With Tie
The Welland Telus Tigers opened the Oshawa Hockeyfest tournament by tying the Clarington Toros 1-1 in major peewee A pool play.
Welland spent nearly half the 40-minute contest in the sin bin as the refs were unnecessarily busy assessing penalties in an otherwise calm game, with the Tigers being penalized with 18 minutes to Clarington's 14. Two back-to-back delay-of-game penalties for a loose mooring seemed particularly punitive as well as a too-many players call for a player who fell on the play and was actually halfway onto the bench when the call was made. But the Tigers would overcome the bad officiating and take the lead on Tyler Ray's unassisted marker with 3:40 left in the game and appeared to be on their way to earning a victory before the Toros would answer late with Tyler Oliver banging home the puck on a goal-mouth scramble that crossed the line with 1:04 remaining, seemingly after the whistle had blown.
Despite the misfortune, Welland is still in good shape to advance to Sunday with today's point however they will need to play two more good games tomorrow in order to do so within the ten-team division as only four teams advance under the tournament format.
Clarington went 0-for-7 with the man-advantage thanks to excellent penalty-killing by the Tigers while Welland not successful in five opportunities with the extra attacker.
Welland opens Saturday with a 10:45am matchup against the West Hill Golden Hawks before finishing the round-robin with a 6:15pm tilt against the Pickering Panthers.