City peewee team earning valuable hockey experience

The Freightliner Cougars have some tough, uphill trucking ahead of them.

The Cougars are the host team for the Up The Creek Garment Company peewee rep hockey tournament, which will run Friday through Sunday at the Kin Centre. The Cats will be one of eight clubs in attendance, and two of the teams -- Fort St. John and Williams Lake -- are among the best in B.C. in the 11- and 12-year-old age group.

The Cats, meanwhile, are a young and relatively inexperienced squad at the rep level.

"We're a tier 2 team so most of the boys, it's their first exposure to rep hockey," said head coach Glen Whitehead. "But we're having a really good season, with enormous improvement. Because it's peewee hockey, it's the first time these boys have ever played 'hitting' hockey and used systems. Most of these kids have never been taught or done any of that. So the start of the year was a little rough but they're learning the team game."

The majority of the Freightliner players are 11-year-olds. In four previous tournaments this season, the best finish for the team was a third-place showing in Fort St. John.

The first game for the Cougars is Friday at 10:15 a.m. against Kitimat. On Friday night (7:15), the Cats will be back on their blades for a game against Terrace. Powerhouse Fort St. John -- which has beaten Prince George in all three meetings to date -- is the other team in the pool.

"Fort St. John is an outstanding team," Whitehead said. "They're a team that's built to win the provincials this year. They're all second-year kids, and huge. We've battled them three times, well into the third. It was anybody's game, but they're just an awesome team. I would say they're the No. 1 team (coming to the tournament), followed by Williams Lake."

The Cats will clash with Fort St. John at 10 a.m. on Saturday.

Williams Lake is in the other pool, along with Quesnel, Smithers and Grande Prairie.

The two Prince George goaltenders are Mathew Ens and Jacob Sweet, both 11-year-olds. On defence, the Cougars have Carl Ewert, Bret Wakabayashi, Bailey McFaul, Jesse Pomeroy, Mason Roche and Cameron Prouse. The forward units are formed by Tyson Ghostkeeper, Dylan Krahn, Dawsen Brienen, Mateo Albinati, Matthias Urbanski, Ryan Whitehead, Austin Heidt, Darian Long and Landon Moleschi. Chris Kaban and Chad Ghostkeeper are assistant coaches and Kevin Prouse is the team manager.

The playoff round will start on Saturday afternoon. Sunday's gold-medal game is planned for 9:45 a.m. at Kin 1.