By Tina Comeau
THE VANGUARD
NovaNewsNow.com
The Jake’s Diner Midget A Mariners ended their 2009-10 season on a high note, winning silver at midget A provincials and then coming home with the top divisional banner after winning the Odyssey championship at SEDMHA.
The team’s coach, Brian Comeau, credits the team’s success this season to his players’ hard work and effort.
“We had an exceptional year for midget rep. It’s unusual that you make provincials and win SEDMA in the same year,” he says. “It’s just been a really great bunch of kids this year, they worked extremely hard and it was a really great bunch of parents to work with.”
The Mariners were the only Yarmouth team to compete at SEDMHA, which was held in the metro region April 1-4. It is the largest minor hockey tournament in the Atlantic region, this year attracting around 260 teams in the various divisions. In the midget A division, there were 10 teams.
Comeau says heading into the tournament he was sure that Yarmouth could be a contender in the highest division of SEDMHA and that’s where the team ended up, shutting out a team from Kent-Sud, N.B. 4-0 in the Odyssey championship game. Goalie Mitchell MacDougall was in net for the Mariners, and Comeau says he was also named the top goalie at provincials. At SEDMHA Robert Surette and Aaron LeBlanc led the Mariners with nine points.
During the round robin of SEDMHA, the Mariners had three wins and one loss. The scores were as follows:
Yarmouth 8 – East Hants 1
Yarmouth 8 – Cap-Pele, N.B. 2
Kent-Sud 3 – Yarmouth 2
Yarmouth 3 – Acadia 2
At provincials held a couple of weeks earlier, Yarmouth also had an impressive run, winning four of five games. Unfortunately the one game they lost was the championship game versus Bridgetown. The valley team came out on top 3-1, incidentally the same score Yarmouth had beaten Bridgetown by in the round robin.
During provincials Yarmouth had a 3-2 win over Pictou, a 5-2 win over Acadia and a 3-2 win over Cheticamp.
For some players on the team, this was their final year playing minor rep hockey.
