A silver medal may be a respectable finish, but it’s not what the Fraser Valley Thunderbirds hockey team was hoping for, coach Travis Oddy said.
“Obviously not the outcome that we wanted,” Oddy said.
Okanagan Rockets won the first-ever Minor Midget League Championship, defeating the Thunderbirds in a best-of-three series, two games to none .
It was a close battle, with the Rockets winning both games in the championship series by single goals, edging the Thunderbirds 3-2 on Saturday, March and 5-4 on Sunday.
“It was a real tight series and they’re a great team.,” Oddy said.
READ MORE: Fraser Valley Thunderbirds bound for playoffs
Going into game one, the team of mostly Langley players was jittery, but they weren’t the only ones..
“I could sense our team’s nervousness,” Oddy said.
“[But] I would say the other team felt the same way.”
By game two on Sunday, the Thunderbirds were in a better head space.
“We had great energy, we had great speed,” Oddy said.
“Our guys just emptied the tank.”
But the breaks kept going the wrong way, ending with the Rockets taking first.
The team fought hard - Silver Medalists pic.twitter.com/KlEkLO6eCf
— Minor Midget Thunderbirds (@mmThunderbirds) March 17, 2019
It was the end of the inaugural season for both the Fraser Valley Thunderbirds and the BC Hockey’s minor midget league for 15-year-old players, created to give young players a chance to develop with other athletes of the same age
After a 30-game season that saw the team on the road across the Lower Mainland, playing as far away as Vancouver Island and Prince George, none of the players will be coming back for a second season, because all of them will be older than the age limit for the new league.
“We will not have a single returning player,” Oddy said.
“Every team is in the same boat. You get 19 players for a year.”
Rebuilding will begin in April.
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Email: dan.ferguson@langleyadvancetimes.com
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