The North Star Mini Storage U13 Mustangs struck gold at the Richmond Jets Icebreaker Rep Tournament recently.

The tourney took place over the Thanksgiving weekend, Oct 6-8.

The Star spoke with Mustangs head coach Jeff Frizzell about the team’s success.

“It’ll be a great warmup for our tier two tournament that we’re going to over Remembrance Day in Victoria,” he said.

“So that’ll be a little bit harder competition. The kids are working towards provincials, which will take place in Alder Grove (B.C.) over Spring Break.”

The team played six games in total and dominated the competition. They went 4-0 to top the divisional standings, with 28 goals for and only three against.

They started the tourney with a 7-1 victory over the Victoria Racquet Club and ended the tourney with an 8-1 triumph over Victoria in the final.

“It was our first tournament together, having this trip together, I wasn’t sure how strong they were going to be,” related Frizzell. “Overall, just a great team effort. Scored a lot of goals. We really worked on playing a defensive game as well, only giving up five goals all tournament. We talked about it before our first game, just really working on having a strong forecheck. And getting everybody hard back-checking.

“We had a lot of parents from the other teams commenting on how hard all the kids work when they were on the ice. They were playing a really smothering style, not giving the other teams any space on the ice. We were just on them as soon as they had the puck.

“We had about nine forwards on the team, and every single every time they were on the ice, just played their hardest for about 45 seconds to one minute. We really talked about taking short shifts because it was going to be a six-game tournament. So we wanted everybody to still have some energy and they all bought into what we were selling and had a great tourney.”

Frizell was asked what stood out to him about the team’s strong tournament.

“I think how well the second year players just kind of took on a leadership role over the weekend. Typically, when you get a U13 team together, it’s pretty much all second year players but this is a real split. 10 of the 17 players are first year players, so we’re a really young team compared to some of these teams that are down at these tournaments. So yeah, just a lot of leadership from my second year players in the dressing room, and warm up, and on the ice, hustling and setting a good example for the younger kids. That was one of the coolest things I saw this weekend, was just how they all came together so quickly being led by those second year kids.”

Not surprisingly, Frizzell was happy with the way things went.

“I wasn’t sure where we were gonna stand. If we were going to be a Tier Two team or a Tier Three team but yeah, the results from this weekend just show that these kids are gonna be something special to watch all year long. It’s a super strong group of kids. Whether they weren’t gonna be able to compete at Tier Two, I wasn’t sure, but they proved this weekend to me that they’re definitely going to be a Tier Two team.”

Needless to say, the kids were pleased with the results as well.

“After the first game, we really had to kinda temper their expectations because we didn’t know what the quality was going to be on the other teams. So yeah, they did a good job of staying focused straight through the weekend, which is tough for a group of 11 and 12 year olds. When they come out on the right side of a lopsided first game, I think it’s easy to overlook the rest of the tournament and just look towards the finals. But every game, they came prepared to play the full game and worked their hardest, so it was nice seeing them at the end of the weekend getting their medals and smiles on their faces and got a trip to the trampoline park as a treat after, so, it was a pretty cool wrap-up to the weekend.”

Frizzell said he’s expecting stronger competition in Victoria.

“But these kids showed this weekend that they’re definitely going to be able to compete at that level. So we’re all super excited to get some practices in in the next few weeks and then we get down to Victoria and see how we do at Tier Two level.”

Frizzell added, “It’s just been a great group of kids. They come to the rink every day ready to work, and it paid off this weekend.”