Pond hockey fun

Mario Prusina

Times Editor

 

The Wheatland Athletics Association (WAA) hosted their annual three-on-three hockey tournament March 31-April 3 at the Strathmore Family Centre.

Atom, peewee and bantam aged players from the WAA draw area took part in the fun tournament, which introduced them to a higher level of competition.

“The idea is basically to expose as many kids as we can to our program,” said WAA president Sandy Henry. “It’s not run like a hockey program – it’s run like a fun tournament. It’s to get them to Strathmore, show them the facility and meet some other kids. It’s mainly to have some fun.”

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.

According to Henry, 120-130 players took part in the weekend tournament, which is a 20 per cent higher than last year.

“We have more players this year, but a few less in the atom group,” said Henry. “We had a real good response in our peewee group and a few more (than last year) in our bantam group.”

Henry stressed that the three-on-three is not an evaluation tournament. 

“We don’t keep track of who is in what jersey,” he said. “We try to make the teams as even as we can and have fun.”