It’s a ” three-peat ” for the Saugeen Shores Winterhawks.
The Hawks clinched their third consecutive WOAA Senior Hockey title with a 3-1 win over the Tavistock Royals before a full house at the Plex in Saugeen Shores.
The Winterhawks win the best of seven series, four games to two.
The Hawks came out strong from the top scoring two unanswered goals in the first period from Andy Mitchell and Blake Underwood.
The Royals tightened the game up in the second period with one goal but in the third Brent MacDermid scored to give the winning squad a two-goal cushion once again which held up to the end of the game.
Coach Peter Roedger says it was a team effort from start to finish but he referred to forward Shawn Walker who was playing with a broken forearm Saturday night in Tavistock and again Sunday night in Saugeen Shores.
Roedger says he was going to tell the team once the celebrating was over to relish the moment because it will never be the same even if you win another championship down the road.
The Hawks seemed to have made a habit out of it.
This year’s championship is the 4th in the last five years and as mentioned, the third in a row.
Roedger says he’s prepared to come back to coach the squad next season if the team wants him.
Winterhawks captain Greg Thede, who is enjoying his 7th championship which includes four with the current team, says the team certainly didn’t have an easy time of it in this series.
Thede complimented the Tavistock Royals for a good series that could have gone either way.
He says his squad got lucky in winning a couple of overtime games during the course of the six contests.
Winterhawks goalie Andrew Smith, who has been outstanding in this series, believes he played his best game of the season Sunday night and was thrilled with the championship win.
Smith says he was tired playing three games in three nights and both teams seemed to run out of gas in the third period of the final game but he salutes the squad in front of him for making his job that much easier.
He also made special mention of the fans who kept the team in the game throughout the 60-minutes.
Smith says the fans really do make a difference for the home team.