Fun hockey action
Mario Prusina – Times Editor
The Wheatland Athletics Association (WAA) hosted their annual three-on-three hockey tournament this past weekend at the Strathmore Family Centre.
Atom, peewee and bantam aged players from the WAA draw area took part in the shinny tournament, which introduced them to a higher level of competition.
“It’s an opportunity for us to promote Wheatland double-A in our draw zone,” said WAA president Sandy Henry. “All the kids that come to this (tournament) are from our draw zone and we restrict it to that. It’s also an opportunity to get kids from all the other towns together so they can have some social interaction, maybe develop a little comfort level and hopefully develop an urge to come to Wheatland and try out for our double-A teams.”
According to event organizers, the annual three-on-three tournament has been in existence since the early 1990’s and is still going strong.
With the current format, there is a lot of open ice, which makes for some fun and exciting hockey to watch.
“Obviously there is some talent out there that we don’t get an opportunity to see unless we can draw them into a (regular season) tryout situation,” said Henry. “It’s a chance for us to see what the talent pool might look like moving forward.”
According to Henry, almost 100 players took part in the weekend tournament, which was originally introduced to peewee and bantam aged players.
“We decided to expand it into the atom group just to get an earlier start on exposing them to the program,” said Henry. “They’re an enthusiastic bunch always looking for a little extra hockey here and there, so we thought we’d include them.
“Last year was our first year with the atoms, so we had a real good response.”
According to Henry, the number of players attending the tournament was down a bit from last year, but that was sort of expected with the Easter weekend.
“We’re a little disappointed this year – I think being a holiday weekend has gone against us a little bit,” he said in regards to attendance. “You know families are looking (toward) the first long-weekend with nice weather and everyone has a lot of things to do.”