By Sheldon Spackman

Optimist Chiefs close out Mac’s Tournament with victory over Flames

Dec 31, 2019 | 9:20 AM

The Red Deer Optimist Chiefs have wrapped-up play at the Mac’s Midget AAA World Invitational Hockey Tournament in Calgary, with a 4-1 victory over the Calgary Flames on Monday.

As a result, the Chiefs finish with a 1-3 record at the end of round robin play, with the quarter finals taking place on Tuesday and the tournament final set for New Year’s Day at 4:30 p.m. at the Scotia Bank Saddledome.

Chiefs head coach Doug Quinn says he was happy to get the win on Monday at least.

“Obviously it hasn’t been a great tournament for us, but I did like how our kids responded yesterday,” recalls Quinn. “We were missing Jayden Henderson (forward), our top scorer, but I thought some other kids stepped up and made a positive out of a kind of negative tournament, so I’m glad that we regrouped and played well yesterday.”

Monday’s game against the Flames saw the Chiefs open the scoring with Foxx Doell lighting the lamp on the power play at 11:26 of the first period to put the Chiefs up 1-0. Ty Daneault and Cash Regan picked up assists on the goal.

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Less than a minute later, the Chiefs capitalized on that momentum and went up 2-0, thanks to a goal from Ben Perreault at 10:43 – assisted by Silas Buijs, and later proving to be the game winner.

In the second, Red Deer’s Grady Mofford scored at 7:36, assisted by Tyler MacKenzie and Ty Daneault, to put the Chiefs up 3-0.

The third period saw Red Deer pull ahead 4-0 after Andrew Wallace scored at 18:53, assisted by Grady Mofford.

The Flames managed to break the goose egg before time expired however, when Kayde Kinaschuk scored for Calgary at 5:19 to make it a 4-1 final for the Chiefs.

Shots on goal finished 29-26 in favour of Calgary.

Prior to Monday’s game, the Chiefs fell 5-4 to the Vancouver NW Hawks on Friday, lost 7-4 to the Chicago Mission on Saturday, and were shut out 2-0 by the Saskatoon Blazers on Sunday.

Although Quinn feels the Chiefs played reasonably well against Vancouver, he was disappointed to see their late-game lead disappear.

“We were up 4-2 with five minutes to go and we kind of fell apart and gave up three goals,” he laments. “It created negative disappointment within our team and it was kind of hard to recover from that. The second game we had that quick turnaround, played a late game and then played at 9 o’clock the next morning against a pretty good team and we just weren’t ready to play.”

In their third game against the Blazers, Quinn says the Chiefs just didn’t have the energy required.

“Not a lot of emotion and just couldn’t generate any offense and ended up losing 2-0 with an empty netter,” adds Quinn. “So I would say this tournament overall was a bit of a disappointment for us.”

At the conclusion of Monday’s game against the Flames, forward Ty Daneault lead all Chiefs players in points over the course of the tournament, with three goals and two assists for five points in four games.

Quinn hopes this year’s squad will now grow from the adversity.

“We still have a young team and we have to take that experience and learn and grow,” he exclaims. “And realize that if we’re not working our hardest and playing our best, then we’re not going to have the success that we want. So we need to build off that and realize the committment and work ethic that’s required to play at this level.”

The Optimist Chiefs (11-8-3) will now continue their regular season on Jan. 4 when they host the St. Albert Nektar Raiders (18-1-3) at the Servus Arena at 4:45 p.m.

Quinn admits the Chiefs will need to gear-up quick for that one.

“St. Albert has been very strong this year but saying that, we’ve also shown that we can compete with any team in this league,” he declares. “We’ve let a lot of points get away from us this year and if we continue to work our hardest and get that consistency that we’re looking for, I feel comfortable that we can play with any team in this league.”

Quinn notes a focus for the team moving forward will be learning how to seal the deal.

“Usually when you’re up going into the last two to three minutes, you should be able to close those games out,” says Quinn. “But we’ve let a number of games get away from us,” so we just need to figure out how to shut it down and win these games instead of letting them get away as either ties or losses. So just looking for the consistency.”