Congratulations to the Sarnia Canadiens who won the minor midget SHARKS tournament last weekend in dramatic fashion.

After going 2 and 2 in round robin play, the Sarnia team (mostly comprised of minor midget and major bantam Lambton AAA players) squeaked into the semi-final game on a tie-breaker formula.

Playing the undefeated first seed St. Mikes Buzzers (comprised of Toronto minor midget AAA players), the Sarnia team defeated St. Mikes in OT by a score of 3-2.

This set up a tournament final showdown between Sarnia and the Durham Dogs (another Toronto AAA area team). The Durham team was the Home team in the final having defeated Sarnia in round robin play by a score of 4-1.

But Sarnia was up for the challenge. The action was end to end with each team captilazing on scoring opportunities. By the end of regulation play the score was tied 4-4 and Sarnia was into another overtime game. Sarnias goalie, Joel Sowinski, was the difference in the latter part of the third period making some incredible saves to preserve the possibility for Sarnia to win the game in OT.

In the first OT period Sowinski was called upon once again to make some key saves as Sarnia took a penalty and was down 4 players to 3. Sarnia managed to kill the penalty and the two teams battled to a scoreless end of the first OT period. In the second OT period Sarnias leading scorer in the tournament Corey Pawley (who, the day before, was drafted by the OHL London Knights in the 4th round of the OHL draft), broke in on the Durham goalie and in dramatic fashion roofed the puck into the top left corner for the tournament winning goal.

THE 2011 MINOR MIDGET AAA SHARKS TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS
The Sarnia Canadiens (picture above)

Standing (left to right) - Coach Blake Morrison, Matt Doidge, Coach Kirk McLintock, Troy Whitely, Mathew Brandon, Corey Pawley, Adam Wammes, Ben Morrison, Ryan Trottier, PJ VandrVaart, Clay Williams, Brett Storr, Trainer Joe Sit
Kneeling (left to right) - Adam Lane, Nick Zottl, Danny Nikandrov, Tahrell Miller, Jeff Sit, Joel Sowinski