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Ontario women win hockey gold
With the win, Ontario keeps its Canada Games women's hockey title.
"I'm never taking this medal off," assistant captain Meghan Hunter shouted outside the dressing room at the Canada Games Centre. "This is what we're here for."
Hunter, 17, of Oil Springs, said the players started taping the slogan to their socks at the beginning of the tournament.
"All along, we were going step by step. It's kind of like Everest. We could just focus on it,"said Hunter, who assisted on the winning goal.
After beating all the teams in their pool by such huge numbers, it seemed to take forever for Ontario to score its first goal last night. But not because of a lack of chances. Ontario outshot Quebec 51-18.
It was the play of Quebec goalie Charline Labonte that kept Quebec in the game.
Val Hall of Niagara Falls scored twice in the game, getting the winner at 3:51 of the third.
Her goal came because of her own persistence. Labonte had stopped Hall's initial shot, which came after a pass from Hunter, but Hall slapped Labonte's pads and the puck got loose and slid behind the goalie.
Hall's first goal was at 4:29 of the second. She got in close on Labonte and put the puck up top on the glove side.
Cherie Piper of Scarborough, the tournament points leader with 16, scored Ontario's final goal when she let a shot go from just inside the blue line. It got past a screened Labonte.
Quebec's only goal came on the power play with less than a minute remaining in the game. Gina Kingbury scored on a pass from Melanie Potvin to break Rachel Barrie's shutout.
Quebec threatened to score earlier in the period when Ontario was two players short. With captain Cheryl Muranko of Cambridge in the box for body checking, Brigden's Allison Edgar took a penalty for hooking only 42 seconds later.
Quebec players drilled five slapshots and a wrist shot at Barrie, but the Cambridge native stopped them all.
"We've been working our butts off for this goal," said Muranko, who played the game with a fibreglass cast on her broken wrist. "We were playing right to the last whistle."
Muranko's wrist was broken when she ran into the net during a game Wednesday against Nova Scotia.
There was no scoring in the first period, although Ontario outshot Quebec 14-5. Both teams were only on the power play once during the period. The play was tentative in the first as neither team wanted to make a mistake.
Ontario's record in round-robin play was 4-0, with their biggest blowout of the tournament coming in their 13-0 victory over Prince Edward Island on the first day of competition.
Quebec also had a 4-0 record, although its games were a lot closer than Ontario's.
In round-robin play, besides Piper, two other Ontario players led in points. Hall had 11 points and Tracy Palinsky of Brooklin had 10. Hunter was tied for fourth on the list with eight points.
London and area players on the winning team besides Hunter and Edgar were: goaltender Katie Germain of Sarnia; Leanne Tunks of Rannoch, defence; Karen Droog of Listowel, forward; and Cori Forbes of Sarnia, forward. Kim Fleet of London was an alternate for the team, but didn't travel to Corner Brook.
She kept in touch with the team through e-mail.
Jenn Dewar, formerly of London, a former Canada Games participant in hockey, was the referee for the game. She handed out 10 penalties.