Like the rest of his Coast Inn of the North midget Tier 1 Cougars teammates, Kyle Boshier is doing whatever he can to climb one last minor hockey rung and play for a junior team.
The 17-year-old right winger is hoping the junior scouts were watching the Cougars flex their muscles on the ice while going undefeated in the four-team AAA Photography tournament at the Kin Centre on the weekend.
Those Cougars looked mighty impressive in Sunday's final at Kin 2 - a convincing 6-1 win over the Northeast Trackers of Fort St. John.
"It feels really good to win this, we won it last year so we really wanted to win it again this year," said Boshier. "We came out and did exactly what we wanted, got up early. We came out flat on Friday (and had to overcome a 2-0 deficit to beat the Trackers 4-3 in the preliminary round) so we really wanted to come out strong in the first and we just kept rolling each period."
All three Coast Inn forward lines got into the scoring act in a three-goal first period and it was Boshier who got the celebration train in motion. He scored just 1:58 into the game with a shot from the slot after linemate Braden Young made a slick play at the blueline to hold the puck in the offensive zone and the loose puck came to Boshier.
Late in the period, Noah Goyer made it 2-0 and his brother Elijah countered two minutes later to put the Cougars comfortably ahead.
"Our whole team all weekend, they were marching in the same direction and everybody bought into the game-plan and pulled their weight," said Cougars head coach Justin Fillion. "We've had moments of that throughout the year and it's finally nice to see a whole weekend played like that.
"All our older guys, Boshier, Young, (Logan) Archer, (Jaymes) Pattie, (Landon) Kitchen, they all stepped up and our two goalies (Aaron Jakubowski and Jake Sweet), both 17-year-olds, played unbelievable this weekend. When the younger guys see those guys going it's easy for them to follow suit."
Boshier's line, with Brandon Dent at left wing and Young at centre, went back to work in the second period and sunk two more daggers into the heart of the Trackers.
Dent made it a 4-0 game with five minutes gone in the second and Young cashed in a 2-on-0 chance and buried a shot upstairs behind Trackers goalie Tyler McArthur.
In the third period, Jaxon Danilec got his own rebound and buried it for a 6-0 lead.
At that point the Trackers replaced McArthur with Brandon Clark and the goalie switch had the desired effect. They generated some quality chances and a slapshot from defenceman Jeridyn Loewen spoiled Jakubowski's shutout bid, 5:52 into the third period.
The Cougars got to the final with a 5-0 semifinal win Saturday night over the South Okanagan Stars of Penticton. In the other semi, the Trackers defeated the Semiahmoo Ravens of Surrey 3-2. That game ended with a bit of rough stuff and as a result the Trackers were without one of their top forwards for the final when Nick Vanderploeg was suspended.
The Trackers are a young team with nine first-year midgets and they were missing Connor Bowie, their top 15-year-old forward, called up by the WHL's Portland Winterhawks on the weekend.
"We knew this was going to be a real uphill climb for us but overall we're real happy we came through this tournament, we're getting better every week," said Trackers head coach Dave Johnston. "We know Prince George is between us and the provincial championship so it gives an idea to go back to the drawing board and keep working on competing with them. We'll take the good out of here and learn from the negatives."
