The St. John’s Maple Leafs and Tri-Pen Osprey both made it to the quarter-final round before being knocked out of championship contention in the major midget division at the Chronicle Herald East Coast IceJam over the weekend in Halifax.
All four teams from the Newfoundland and Labrador Major Midget Hockey League participated in the annual event, with the Maple Leafs, Western Kings and Osprey finishing with 2-1 records in round-robin play. The East Coast Blizzard were 1-2, but still advanced to the Round of 16 with the other Newfoundland teams.
There, St. John’s and Tri-Pen won their first playoff games, while the East Coast and Western were immediately eliminated.
In the quarter-finals, the Leafs lost 6-2 to the Cape Breton Islanders (a team they had defeated 2-1 in the round-robin), while The Osprey were beaten 5-2 by the Saint John, N.B., Vitos.
The Moncton Flyers won the title, blanking the Kensington, P.E.I., Kings 1-0 in the final.
Two players on the Western Kings — goalie Lucas Wiseman and defenceman Lucas Robinson — were named to the tournament’s second all-star team.
The Ice Jam also had a major bantam division including Newfoundland teams Tri-Pen Ice (1-2 in the round robin), St. John’s Hitmen (1-2), TriCom Thunder (0-3) and Western Kings (0-3).
None of them made it to the Round of 16, but forward James Stamp of St. John’s and goalie J.T. Tobin of Tri-Com were first-team all-stars, forward Michael Normore-Wells of Western was a second-team selection and Mitchell Wagner of TriCom got the nod as the tournament’s best first-year bantam player.
