Thunder Win Gold In Burlington
The U12 Chatham Thunder ringette team travelled to Burlington over the weekend and put their skills on display and came home with a gold medal. The team played five games and finished with 30 goals for and only 5 goals against, including a 5-2 gold medal game victory over Sault Ste. Marie.
The first game was against divisional foe the Waterloo Black. Chatham crushed them 8-1 with a complete team effort. Abby Janess, Myah Walters, and Kaia Rivard all scored 2 goals and an assist. Kate Thompson and Stasia Krovolets each scored and assisted on another. Single assists were earned by Abby Lumley, Brooke Howe, Abby Padbury, Maya Haines, Grace Norris, and Malarie Badder. Addison Tope was the winning goalie.
Game 2 saw Chatham match up against West Ferris in a lopsided match. It was a complete whitewashing that ended as a 13-0 score. Brooke Howe led the onslaught with a hat-trick and three assists. Walters and Rivard both added hat tricks as well. Malarie Badder sprung from the blue-line to add a goal and two assists. Thompson, Janess, and Padbury all added single goals. Krovolets added three helpers and single assists went to Grace Norris and Abby Lumley. Goalies Addison Tope and Natalie Haggerty split the game.
Game 3, the Chatham Thunder took on the City of Ottawa. Another unbalanced game for Chatham as they were just too much for their opponent to handle. A 7-0 decision was the end result. Kaia Rivard led the scoring with three goals. Kate Thompson with a goal and two helpers, Grace Norris added one of each as well. Abby Janess and Myah Walters rounded out the scoring with single tallies. Haggerty earned the shutout in this one.
Game 4 saw Chatham with an opponent that challenged them. Facing Sault Ste. Marie, Chatham jumped ahead in the first half and took a 1-0 lead on a goal by Abby Janess into the second. The Soo fought back and had the score tied 2-2 and it looked like it would end that way. Kaia Rivard also scored and had what looked to be the game winner taken away with about a minute left. In typical Thunder form, Kate Thompson skated through her opponents and buried the winner with 11 seconds left, a 3-2 finish and a date the next day for gold, facing the very same team in a rematch.
Facing Sault Ste Marie for gold, Kaia Rivard had two goals and an assist, and Thompson, and Walters added singles as Chatham took a 4-0 lead into the half. Sault Ste. Marie wouldn’t lay down however, and fought back to make it 4-2 before Thompson finished with her second goal of the game for a 5-2 final and Chatham tournament win.
Kaia Rivard led the tournament in scoring with 12 goals and 1 assist. Chatham had 4 of the top 6 scorers over the weekend – Rivard, Thompson, Walters and Howe.
Chatham returns to action this Saturday against Kitchener at 11am at Erikson Arena in Chatham.