Fifth place was the order of finish at the Esso Cup for the St. Albert Slash.
Their fate was sealed after losing Thursday's showdown against Quebec in the last round-robin game at the national female midget hockey championship at Servus Credit Union Place.
"The girls are crushed," said head coach Terry Sydor after the Slash dropped a 4-2 decision to Kodiacs du Lac St-Louis. "It hurts very much. This is such a great event and such a showcase that we really wanted to play in the medal game and unfortunately we couldn't."
A win or tie in regulation time would have secured a spot in Friday's semifinals.
"We had so many strong things in each of the games earlier in the tournament and unfortunately it got down to a do-or die-game," Sydor said.
The team from Kuper Academy in Kirkland, Que. posted period leads of 1-0 and 4-1 and outshot the Slash 25-17 en route to a playoff berth.
"It feels great. We wanted so bad to win this game. We worked for it and we did it," said power forward Vickie Lemire, the player of the game for Quebec with two pivotal second-period goals. "We weren't too nervous because there was no reason to be. We had been practicing all year for this so stress and nervousness didn't have their place here."
The Slash looked slow and tentative in their biggest game of the year.
"It felt like we were just that one step behind the whole game," said assistant captain Sabrina Flemming. "Nerves might have been a factor, definitely in the first period. After that it just didn't work out for us. It just wasn't our day."
The Slash never recovered after giving up the opening goal with 5:04 left in the first, as Stephanie Pellerin-Therien converted a rebound during a scramble around netminder Emily Mitchell.
"We could've came out a lot harder at the start," said left-winger Jessica Kampjes, the Slash player of the game. "The first goal was a turning point. Everybody has a hope and then everything just went downhill. We just couldn't get that puck into the net and the bounces weren't going our way."
Stephanie's twin sister Karine salted away a rebound off a floater from the point to make it 2-0 with 2:34 gone in the middle frame. It was also the twins' 17th birthdays, making the win extra special for the girls from Pointe-Claire, Que.
Kampjes, 16, cut the deficit in half at 10:41 with a low shot roaring in off the wing after stepping out of the penalty box.
Breakaway goal
At 11:07 a goal by Lemire as Quebec crashed the net was waved off by referee Lacey Senuk of St. Albert after initially signalling the puck was in. Twenty seconds later, Lemire blew past a defender along the boards at the Quebec blue line, streaked in alone and deposited the puck past Mitchell with a nifty move.
"The first goal it was refused so I was really mad so I came back the same shift and I put some pressure on the defence and I got away on a breakaway and I scored. I didn't really realize how it happened; it just happened," Lemire said.
After the highlight of the night, Lemire banked in a fluky goal with 2:02 left in the period.
"I was beside the net and I just threw it in front and it hit someone's pads and it went in. I was pretty lucky on that one," said the 17-year-old right-winger.
Quebec scored three goals on 17 shots in the second. The Slash was credited with only six shots on netminder Laurie Anne Beaulieu.
"We got down and then the hole just got a little deeper," Sydor said. "It was tough. There was a lot of pressure and intensity."
Three minutes into the third, Beaulieu stopped Krystal Reithmayer at the doorstep. Beaulieu also stood tall during back-to-back Slash power plays, followed by consecutive saves on Kampjes and Angela Mason. As the period wound down, Matana Skoye and Kampjes were denied by Beaulieu.
Mason eventually slipped the puck in while cutting across the crease with 4:24 remaining.
With 3:10 to play, Lemire was at the end of a long shift while driving towards the net with two Slash defenders on her back. She was sent sprawling into the end boards and Kampjes was penalized for tripping. Captain Melissa Kueber joined her in the penalty box for body checking with 1:44 left.
Outshot 8-5 in the period, Quebec hung on for their second win at nationals and a date with the Edmonton Thunder in the semifinals.
"We played really well. We played together as a team," said Lemire, an assistant captain in Grade 11.
No medals
The Slash showed brief flashes of their vast potential but it wasn't enough to advance into the medal round.
"The girls battled to the end and that's all you can really ask for," Sydor said. "Certainly this wasn't our shining moment as well as our team can play. It wasn't as if we played an incredible game and got beat. Full marks to Quebec. They played well. They deserved to win the game and we weren't able to get it done."
The Slash dressing room was flooded with tears after their season ended sooner than expected.
"Everybody is just so overwhelmed with what happened," Kampjes said. "We started the tournament doing amazing. We came in as hosts, as the underdogs and we proved that we could beat Ontario [4-3 in shootout against the Toronto Aeros] and we could compete with Edmonton again [lost 1-0 on a late goal by their Thunder rivals].
"There was no regrets. We played as well as we could."
The Slash finished fifth in the six team round-robin with one regulation win (5-0 against Kings County Kings of PEI), one shootout win (against Toronto in the tournament opener), one shootout loss (4-3 against the Notre Dame Hounds) and losses to the Thunder and Quebec.
"We did amazing. I'm so proud of every single person and the coaches and the fans and the city," said Flemming, a 16-year-old right-winger who scored three goals at nationals.
A win in regulation time was worth three points in the tournament. Winning teams in overtime or shootouts got two points and the losing teams settled for one.
"There were three occasions where we could've got the extra point that would've guaranteed us a spot. We were up 3-1 on the Aeros and ended up winning it in the shootout but we lost a point there. In the Thunder game we were just over a minute away from getting a point. Against Notre Dame we went into the shootout and could've got two points instead of just the one, but those kinds of things can go either way. They were successful and we weren't," Sydor said.
The Slash finished the season with an overall 41-15-4 record.
"It really was a very special season with all the things that we did and the successes that we had and the experiences that we had together," Sydor said. "I would just like to say thank you to all of the volunteers at the Esso Cup and everyone that came out and helped out and all the people that came and cheered and supported us. It was a great atmosphere and we really would've liked to have got into a couple of more games for the girls to experience that."
The Slash lose only two players to graduation: Kueber, the team's all-time scoring leader, and Skoye, who was awarded the tournament's most sportsmanlike player trophy.
"It's been an amazing year by an amazing team," said Kampjes, who notched three goals and added two assists at nationals for second place behind Kueber (3-3-6) in team scoring. "Everyone has such passion for the game and such commitment to our team. We're almost together six times a week and it's amazing how we were that family that we became."
