Yukon Midget Males qualify for semi-finals with 4-2 victory over Nunavut

The goals may not always be the prettiest, but the Yukon's Midget Male hockey team are scoring enough of them to win hockey games.

The goals may not always be the prettiest, but the Yukon’s Midget Male hockey team are scoring enough of them to win hockey games.
With a 4-2 victory over Nunavut on Tuesday, Team Yukon became the only undefeated team in its pool at this year’s Arctic Winter Games competition in Yellowknife.
The win also officially qualified the team for the semi-finals, which will occur on Thursday.
“The boys, they have been working hard and that is all we can ask at this time,“ said coach Dale Kulych.

“They all realize they have to be grinders and they are talking amongst each other.

They know what they have to do.“
Team Yukon’s first contest at the Arctic Winter Games was against the Northwest Territories (N.W.T.) on Monday.

After a scoreless first period the boys started to come together as a group and were able to take advantage of the power play in the final two frames.

Team Yukon scored an impressive seven goals in its opening contest and limited the N.W.T. to just one goal.
Coming into Tuesday, Nunavut was also undefeated, beating Alaska the previous day by a score of 5-2.

Nunavut scored the opening goal, but it didn’t take the Yukon boys long to respond, notching a goal shortly afterwards on the power play.
Team Yukon scored another power play goal to go up 2-1 and with the score 3-2 heading into the third, the Yukoners added another goal for insurance in the victory.
The team’s next game is against Alaska today and will conclude the round robin play for Yukon squad.

Regardless of the outcome of that game they will still be one of the four teams playing in Thursday’s semi-final.
Kulych said the game against Alaska is an important one because with a victory they would be able to secure top spot in the pool, which would result in them playing the fourth place team in the semis.
The team’s ultimate goal is to win the gold medal and Kulych said he is confident about them being able to do so.
“The game plan for us is to stick to our game and get to our game,“ he said.

“We are not there yet and that is what we want to do. Once we get to our game we are going to be pretty hard to beat,“
Although the team has done well, he said there is still room for improvement.
“I know we can play better,“ Kulych said. “I think we have some room for improvement there and the boys, after these last couple of games, know where they have to work on.

I think you are going to see the results here towards the end of the week.“
Kulych said there isn’t a sense of relief just by qualifying for the semi-finals.
“I think the sense of relief is going to come in when we turn around and come out of here with a gold medal,“ he said.

“I think right now we still have some work to do and the boys know that. Things will come together.“
The Yukon Midget’s closed out the round robin today with a 6-1 victory over Alaska to remain undefeated in the round robin.
In other hockey action at the Arctic Winter Games, the Yukon Bantam Males played the N.W.T. to a 1-1 tie on Monday.

David Stephens scored the Yukon’s lone goal, while Chris Vance and Henry Kedziora each finished with one assist.

The team had 19 shots against the N.W.T. and hit five goal posts.
In Team Yukon’s next game they played Nunavut in a hard-hitting affair.

The Yukon boys outshot Nunavut by a wide margin scoring 10 goals altogether and limiting Nunavut to just three.
Gibson Pearson led the way for Team Yukon, scoring a hat trick and contributing two assists, while Bryden Cook also played very well, finishing with two goals and one assist.
Other goal scorers on the team included Adrian Hawkings, Trevor Hanna, Riley O’Conor, David Stephens and Chris Vance.
In the third game for the Yukon Bantams, the team tied Northern Alberta 1-1.
The team is currently in second place in the standings.