Area hockey team wins festival tourney

LINCOLN - The Our Canadian Hockey Club team, based in Lincoln and managed by George Maris, captured the recent Wal-Mart High School Hockey Festival Tournament championship in Blaine, Minn.

Maris, a Montreal native and Lincoln resident, and assistant coach Dave Tetreault drove two vans the 1,440-mile each-way trek to Minneapolis.

The team played its first game against the St. Francis Saints, winning the game 6-4. Daniel Gauvin of Scituate scored two goals and Lincoln resident Michael Wheeler had a goal and three assists in the game. Redmond Brow and Josh Hunt shared the goal tending duties and stopped 30 of the 34 shots.

The team played its second game against the Detroit Lakes Lakers and won, 4-1. MycKauly Melanson scored three goals for a hat trick and Vincent Gisonti scored the other goal and had an assist.

The final game for the championship was against the undefeated Eveleth-Gilbert team, and the locals pulled out a 5-2 win even though they were out shot, 35-21.

Ben Brouillard was the big gun, scoring four goals, including one while his team was short-handed. The other tally was scored by Vincent Gisonti. Earning assists were Michael Wheeler, Melanson and William Stone Cooney. Goalies Brow and Jared Dauphenais held the undefeated Eveleth-Gilbert to only two scores.

Newcomers to the team, Alex Tetreault, Tyler Dimauro and Morgan Helme performed an outstanding job forcing the opposition into making errors in the offensive zone. Brett Zimmerman, Chad Caldwell, Derek Ridgeway, Chris Hunter, Josh Rocha and Corey Fossa, contributed to the teams lowest goals against in the division.

All in all, Melanson led the team in points with six points, Brouillard had five goals, and Wheeler, four assists. Canadian Hockey Club was the only New England team in the tournament this year.