U17 Canadians Move into Second-Place Tie

The U17 AAA Greater Vancouver Canadians took three out of a possible four points over the weekend in a home-and-home series against the Fraser Valley Thunderbirds, moving into a second-place tie in the standings. 

The Canadians are now 9-3-2-2, good for a second-place tie in the U17 division with Okanagan and only one point behind the first-place Vancouver NE Chiefs (9-6-3-2). The Canadians, though, have four games in hand over the Chiefs and two games in hand over Okanagan.

On Saturday at the Richmond Oval, the Canadians won 2-1 thanks to a pair of second-period goals. Down 1-0 after the first, the Canadians evened the score when Nathan Van Hoeke notched a power-play goal at the 9:13 mark of the second. Sorash Ramlal then scored with 1:59 left in the period, and Alan Peregrym made that lead stand up to improve to 5-0-0-2 on the season. 

On Sunday at the Abbotsford Centre, the Canadians took a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals by Sorash Ramlal and Neven Heer, only to see the Thunderbirds rally for a 2-2 tie. The Canadians looked poised to sweep the weekend series, but the Thunderbirds scored on the power play with only 52 seconds left in the second period to cut the deficit to 2-1 before tying the game 1:20 into the third on another power-play marker. 

Next up for the U17 Canadians, a weekend series in Parksville against the Vancouver Island Royals (4-11-1-2) on Dec. 2-3. Both games will be held at the Oceanside Place Arena, with the Saturday game at 6:30 p.m. and the Sunday contest at 10:30 a.m. Both games can be seen on playfullscreen.com.