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O-ville Tyke select team wins 3-on-3 Niagara tournament

March 19, 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The Orangeville Ducks, a Tyke hockey team from Orangeville came out on top in the Niagara Hockey Challenge three-on-three tournament held in Niagara Falls on March 13 – 14.

The Ducks are all local hockey players who put together this special team just to enter this tournament.

All six and seven years old, the players were very excited to test their skills on the ice against opponents from other towns.

They faced teams from Buffalo, Niagara, Windsor, and the surrounding area.

After arriving at the Gale Centre arena in Niagara Falls, they found out there wasn’t enough kids signed up for the tournament in their age group so they had to play against teams that were a year older than them.

They won their first two games on the ice on Friday. On Saturday, they won their first game but came up short in the second of the day, but they still made the final.

“I got an email asking if we wanted to join the tournament,” explained coach Jason Baxter. “I thought it would be fun for the kids. Technically we were a tyke team. The team we put together had a bunch of six year-olds and my son was five. I didn’t know we were be going to be playing against these older kids. I was really cool to give the kids some real competition.”

The tournament was held on half size ice surfaces to compensate for both the age of the players and the fact that it was a three-on-three tournament.

The team was put together with available local players. There is no rep hockey for this age group in Orangeville so the coach had to hand-pick some kids to be on the team.

“I took a bunch of kids I knew from lacrosse from last season who I knew where good hockey players and they had friends who were good hockey players,” Baxter said.

The team chose the name the Mighty Ducks for the tournament.

Before the final game the team started chanting ‘quack quack quack’ to get motivated. The arena and other players joined in. 

In the final, the Might Ducks left the ice with a 9 – 8 win to claim the top spot in the tournament.

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