The St. Albert Gregg Distributors Sabres are embracing the moment as the host team at the John Reid Memorial Tournament.
“All the boys want to have a fun time. It’s one of the biggest tournaments you can play in,” said assistant captain Ben Belyea of the 42nd annual bantam AAA showcase event that started Thursday and ends Sunday at Servus Credit Union Place.
The tournament features players born in 2005 and 2006 on 16 elite-level teams based in western North America and the Sabres are among seven Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League teams competing.
“We’re approaching it to play hard. We want to show that we want it more than every other team,” said left-winger Jacob Goudreau of the No. 2-ranked Sabres (20-5-1) in the AMBHL standings.
The Canadian Sport School Hockey League is represented by five teams and five of the last six tournament winners were CSSHL teams.
The only St. Albert team to win the championship was the 1983 Territorial Leasing Sabres.
“We want to beat those school teams to show them that we’re better and we can do it,” Goudreau said. “It’s something that we thrive on for sure.”
The Sabres are using the tournament as preparation for the last seven league games before the playoffs start, plus a tournament in Kelowna at the end of the month.
“This will instill a lot of confidence in this team,” Belyea said. “Our team is just going to be awesome by the end of the year.”
The Sabres are united on and off the ice and it shows with their winning record.
“It’s the atmosphere in the dressing room. It’s a great bunch of guys. We all love each other and it just helps a lot to know you can trust everybody in the room,” Goudreau said. “Every game we’re working and using our speed and that’s what helps us. We don’t have much size, but we have lots of speed to help us power through big teams.”
Last year’s Sabres finished 13-15-5 in league play and 3-2 in the playoffs as nitro north division finalists.
“We were a very skilled team, but we just didn’t have that teamwork like we do this year,” said Belyea, a returning Sabres along with captain Carmelo Crandell, one of the highest-scoring AMBHL players with 25 goals and 40 points in 26 games, forward Ashton Hutchinson and netminder Luke Roberts.
“In the dressing room, the chemistry between all of the players is just outstanding,” Belyea added. “Our coaching staff is just outstanding too.”
Game scores
The Sabres started off pool play with Thursday’s 4-0 shutout of the Balgonie (Sask.) Prairie Storm as Adam Chin handled 24 shots.
“I was scared a lot of guys would be nervous, but we just came out and played our systematic game. We were really focused going in and out of the game. Our coach (Steve Ewaskiw) was really pleased,” Belyea said. ‘It was really important to have a good game like this where we’re playing simple.”
The stands at Go Auto Arena were packed with elementary school students and they raised the roof in celebration when Evan Zazulak picked the top corner 54 seconds into the contest.
“That’s a big boost. It helps our team out a lot, especially for Zazzy to score that goal. It was big for him and it was big for us,” said Goudreau.
The Grade 8 Vincent J. Maloney student potted a pair on the power play in the middle frame as the team’s player of the game.
Goudreau, 13, is tied for third for team scoring with 24 points in 26 games after playing for the peewee AA St. Albert Saints last season.
Adam Browton also scored as the Sabres finished with 35 shots.
Crandell and Ben Costantino added two assists apiece.
The Thursday night main event against the Los Angeles Jr. Kings was also the Teddy Bear Toss game that ended with the 6-3 loss for the Sabres.
Period scores were 2-1 and 4-2 for the Kings and shots were 18-6 in the first, 17-9 in the second and 17-8 in the third for 52-23 margin as Roberts hung tough while stopping 47 shots. The Kings struck once on the power play and their last goal was deposited into an empty net.
Jack Ketsa collected two assists as the Sabres’ player of the game.
The Teddy Bear Toss goal was scored by Evan Sundar with 1:42 left in the first and all the stuffed animals thrown to the ice were donated to the St. Albert Food Bank.
Zazulak (power play) and Jamie Visser also lit the lamp.
Friday the Sabres played the St. George’s Saints of Vancouver and the score was unavailable at press time.
Where the Sabres placed in their pool determined what playoff bracket the team will play in this weekend.
Visit johnreidmemorial.com for game times and results.
The Sabres lost four out of five games at last year's tournament and team’s record in 2018 was 2-3.
Performing in front of one of the most heavily scouted bantam tournaments in the country can be intimidating.
“You can’t worry about what the scouts think of you and how you’re going to look for the scouts,” Belyea said. “I just try and keep my focus on the ice because if you're worrying about the scouts you put too much pressure on yourself and you will screw up eventually and the other team will advance on you."
Charities of choice
Off the ice, the Sabres are winners when it comes to giving back to the community as part of the St. Alberta Raiders Hockey Club initiative of people helping people.
“Typically what we’ve done with our teams in the past is we’ll go to the food bank or we'll go to a local charity and have everyone do a one day thing. This year we had a great idea and it was Kristina Redlick (mother of Tyden Redlick) that suggested we challenge the boys to find their own charity, something that means something to them. We gave them a cutoff of January 31 that they had to do something with that charity of choice and something meaningful. I didn’t want them to bring attention to it, but actually go and help out or raise some money so it means something for them,” said head coach Steve Ewaskiw. “A lot of the boys came up with some really great ideas, which is really good to see. They were very creative.
"It just speaks about our group with how great the kids are that they would come up with those things.”
Belyea, 14, has raised around $800 to have the St. Albert Raiders Hockey Club logo on a tile on the Lewis Lavoie mural at the new neonatal intensive care unit at Sturgeon Hospital.
“When I was born I had jaundice and I got rushed to a different hospital with my twin brother (Nikolai). He didn’t have it, but I had to do a full blood transfusion, and I knew my coach had to have one too,” said Belyea, who entered the world an hour ahead of his brother. “My poor mother (Cheryl) saw her two newborn babies taken away to a different hospital and I thought this would be an awesome cause.
"I started doing this right before Christmas. Our whole team has been doing charities for different causes and this one just popped right into my head," said the Grade 9 Richard S. Fowler student. "I have a whole bunch of people from my school and other Raiders’ teams who've supported it,"
Ewaskiw was born with a rare heart condition called dextrocardia with situs inversus.
“My heart is actually on the right side of my body as opposed to the left so I had heart surgery at about three at the Stollery and now with the Mazankowski (Alberta Heart Institute), the adult clinic, that’s where I go and get it checked out with my cardiologist every couple of years,” said the head coach of the 2019 provincial champion St. Albert Flyers in the Alberta Minor Midget AAA Hockey League.
“That’s actually how I got into coaching. My cardiologist wouldn’t sign the waiver for me to continue to play (when I was older),” said the Edmonton Northeast Zone product. “I didn’t know what to do so I talked to my dad and he said why don’t you start coaching so I took on a team and I've been doing it ever since.”
