For young hockey players, nothing beats the experience and the memories that come from playing in a great Christmas Holiday hockey tournament. And right now, there is probably no better Holiday event in Manitoba right than the Winnipeg Jets Challenge Cup at MTS Iceplex. This year, tournament play for many divisions started on Dec 23, but for the organizers of the Challenge Cup, a lot of pre-tournament work got done in the week leading up. As an example, MTS Iceplex staff put together 2100 player packages into bags over a two day period. The bags included official Winnipeg Jets Challenge Cup programs, Winnipeg Jets yearbooks, toques and coupons for a free six-inch sub provided by SUBWAY, Sky Zone socks and, of course, a copy of the latest edition of Game On Magazine. Following the 44-game opening day on Dec 23, there was no hockey for three days while the players celebrated the Christmas holiday. Play resumed on Dec. 27 and it was intense. Of course, this year, the Challenge Cup’ s scheduling format was a bit good luck. With no games scheduled on Boxing Day this year due to increased ice availability on other dates, the tournament avoided what likely would have been a number of postponed, and re-scheduled games due to the heavy snow fall that led to much
of the City of Winnipeg being snowed in that day.
With that bit of scheduling luck, tournament play resumed on December 27th without any scheduling interruptions. The 27th also marked the beginning of the tournament for the
Peewee, and Bantam divisions. Upon the conclusion of the tournament, there were smiles all around from players, coaches, and families. A day before the Blake Wheeler Atom A3 Division final, Westdale Warriors Head Coach Tyler Kochanski wrote an email to tournament organizers:“ Thanks for all the work on the tournament. The boys are having a great time.” Adding to their enjoyable experience, the 10A3 Warriors would go on to win the championship game by a 3-1 score over the 10A3 Kirkfield Westwood Canucks. The Warren Jr. Mercs in the Marko Dano Peewee A2 Division, were another team that expressed to organizers that they had a great tournament experience.“ The boys had an excellent time,” said Jr. Mercs head coach Mark Grindle after his team finished second.“ The whole tournament process went very well”. Some of the key highlights that pulled the whole experience together for players and teams were the online stats and the instant results in which players could view their own individual and team stats on the internet similar to the pros. Additionally, players were provided with a souvenir Winnipeg Jets Challenge Cup official game puck at the conclusion of their tournament. As has been the case in previous years, it gets exciting for players when it comes time to handing out first and second place prizing. This year, division finalists received a silver medal, along with an official Winnipeg
Jets game puck autographed by