Tier 2 (

Due to Toronto's inability to gurentee available floor space this August, London and the LBHA were offered to host the "D" Provincials for the second straight year.  Once again our crew did a bang up job assisting with this event and aside from some weather issues on Saturday everything ran smoothly.  Over the past 2 "D" Provincials (which is our tier 2), we have had the Fury finish 5th in 2008 and Tiger Jacks finish 3rd in 2009. 

<P>This year we had 5 represenatives at the event out of 54 teams which obviously gave us a real good shot to improve once again on our Ontario ranking.  The teams that represented us at this years "D" Provinicals were as follows.......

<P>The Chronic Snipers- Our Tier 2 Playoff Champs

Cowboy Up- Our Tier 2 Playoff Runner-Up 

Generals- This was a third seed that the LBHA was given based on our total size as a league, though the Generals name was used and their jersey's worn, this team was an all-star team comprised of players from the Generals, Strykers, Sutherlands, & Skank Budda.

Werewolves- This team was given a spot after a team from Kanata pulled out of the event.  The team was only given 4 days to prepare for the event.

Snooty Business- This team was issued a spot the morning of the tournament as the team from  Milton pulled it's team last minute.  This squad literally had 5hrs to prepare for thier first game.

<P>Our highest Ranked team (Chronic Snipers) played a great first game but fell short to a team that carries some of their winter team mates and were new to the OBHA Provincials this year (Innisville) The game ended 4-2 on an Empty netter.  The Snipers would bounce back and take thier 2nd game winning 4-0 to draw their record to 1-1 and also advancing them to the next round.  The Snipers run in this event would be cut short as they battled to a 1-1 draw and eventually lose 2-1 in a shoot-out.  3 solid games and I can't help but feel these guys were ousted a little earlier then they deserved.

<P>Snooty Bussiness was clearly not ready for game one as they struggled out of the gates and found themselves down early, by the end of game one it was a 7-0 defeat and were probably questioning their decision to enter on such late notice?  A few hours later however, the team managed to regroup and came out strong and one a decisive decision in a 6-1 victory.  This win gave them a chance at advancing to which they would later found out they did indeed win one of the wild card spots.  Unfortunately in events like this, a WC team may not recieve much notice before they have to play their next game and with only less than 2hrs. notice the Snotty Bussiness were not able to muster enough players to field a team and had to forfeit their round of 32 game, thus ejecting themselves from the tournament.  Props have to be given to this group of guys who offered to take on an almost impossible task that surely not too many teams would have been able to take let alone acheive some success and actually advance.  It'll be nice to see what these guys can do if given a proper oppertunity?

<P>Our Tier 2 Runner Ups the Cowboy Up played an early game day one and battled to a 2-2 draw which wasn't a bad start at all but would need to get the win in game 2 in order to solidify a spot in the next round.  They did just that as again I am not possitive of the score but believe they one convincingly to move on in the touny.  The Cowboy UP team fought the good fight and after regulation of their first playoff game found themselves in an intense 1-1 tie.  The round of 32 does not do any OT before a shoot out so it was off to one to decide who whould move on.....11 shooters deep and still no winner but after the 12th pairing would take their shots, London was left with another promising team looking in from the outside.  A 2-1 defeat similar to the Chronic Snipers has many left with a bitter tase in their mouths and questions of what if?  Great work this year boys, hopefully next season you make the tournament again so that better outcomes can fall your way.

<P>Our mini all-star squad that was put together by Trevor Vandyk dominated their opening game and looked every bit the all-stars as they took game 1 with a 6-0 win.  Game two they met a tougher opponent but still managed to control most of the game leading on two differant occasions, unfortunately some tough break goals and untimely penalties saw this game end in a tie with only 13 seconds remaining.  None the less the Generals would win thier pool and advance to the next round....they found themselves in a bit of an old school shoot out and had enough fire power and timely goaltending to take the playoff game 6-4.  This propelled them into the sweet sixteen round and our best hope at catching the title.  Things were just not meant to be for this London team as they were faced up against a very good ball control team, our guys played and ran hard to keep things close with some timely scoring as they made the best of their oppertunites but a couple bad break goals ended up being the diffrence in this 5-3 defeat.  Final standings are not in but it appears that the Generals will have finished somewhere between 10th-13th overall which is certainly nothing to hang their heads in shame about.  The Generals were our best team in this even and a possible top ten finish is something both them and the league should be very proud of.

<P>The Werewolves came up short in their Friday evening game losing by a score of 5-2 and though I am not possitive of their game two score I do know it was a lossing effort which put them out of the tournament and made them our only London team not to advance in the "D" Provincials.  This is a tough tourny to participate in with weeks of notice to prepare, so having only days to field a team surely had something to do with our Werewolves early exit.  Thanks for taking the spot boys and better luck next time.