Aussies Prepare for World Championships with Exhibition Games in Kamloops

The Kamloops Storm Hockey & the City of Kamloops were pleased that the Australian National Under 20 Mens Hockey Team chose to hold their training camp here. The Aussies are preparing for the Div2A IIHF World Championships being held in Romania later on this month.

The Aussie Juniors Chef de Mission and BC native, Ross Noga, joined us in a pair of broadcasts that highlighted the two exhibition games here in Kamloops. Unfortunately the Kamloops Storm and the North Kamloops Midget AAA Lions were not as generous as hosts on the ice as they were off the ice.
In fairness to the Aussies, these games represented their very first action together as a team. By the results, Coach Graham Homann has his work cut out for him as they approach the World Championaships.
In the first game(Nov.28) the Aussies took on the Kamloops Storm Junior 'B' Hockey Team. They managed to make a game of it in the first period but Kamloops had too much Jassi Sangha working for them. Sangha had 3 goals and 1 assist while making it look pretty easy in a Kamloops 7-2 win over the Aussies. Brenton Cooney started between the pipes and switched up with Andrew Waite half way through the game. It really wasn't until the 3rd period that Kamloops really pulled away.

The Aussies had a few bright spots as their skill level gap from top to bottom is much wider that what you would see with a Canadian team. At the high end, players like the speedy David Upton and Jayson Chalker were solid throughout the game and showed that they could be a scoring threat inspite of the speed of their opponents.
Their second game of the week against the North Kamloops Midget Lions. I thought that the Aussies would dominate as they were older, bigger and stronger. But someone forgot to tell the Midget Lions, particularly starting goaltender Ben Humphrey who stoned the Aussie shooters time and time again in the first half of the game. Kyle Graham who stepped in for Humphrey in the second half of the game wasn't too shabby either. Andrew Waite played the whole game in the nets for the Aussies. He played a solid game except for one unfortunate goal where the puck was lofted into the Aussies zone and bounce before it reach him. He had only flashed his glove out to make the apparently easy save but it hopped over his glove like a bloody 'roo' and into the net. It's one of those plays that goaltenders have nightmares about.

The Midget Lions, despite the size difference played a reasonable technically sound game but gave up too many odd man rushes to give their goaltenders a break. The Aussies on the other hand were showing some nice playmaking only to be stoned by the goaltenders. Luc Mathieu had the hot hand for the Midget Lions as he had two pretty goals with his laser-like shooting. Josh Savoie and Brett Singer also had impressive games.

The final score: Midget Lions 4 - Aussies - 2.

The Upton, Stephenson, Young line was dangerous all night as well as David Huxley on defense. Michael Beaton, Andrew Taylor, Chris James, Nicolas Abba and Ricardo Del Basso also had solid games.

It was a big win for the Midget Lions as they are ages 15-17 while the Aussies have mostly 18-19 year olds.

Hopefully the Aussies can learn from their experience here as well as with their upcoming game against the Sicamous Eagles of the KIJHL on Dec 6. I believe that Sicamous will be doing the audio play-by-play. The Aussies leave Kamloops on Dec 8 and start their trek to Romania.
Good Luck and we hope to see you here again next year.

dave ouellette... kamloopsstormwriter