Churchill Bulldogs win Montreal tourney

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This article was published 01/05/2024 (531 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Collège Churchill High School didn’t ice a team in the recently concluded Winnipeg High School Hockey League season — but that doesn’t mean that Churchill boys haven’t played hockey this year.

On the weekend of April 10-21, a Churchill travelling team, made up of promising Grade 9 and 10 players, along with a few skaters from the school’s hockey academy program, won the U18 men’s Tier 3 trophy at the Défi Scolaire School Challenge 2024 tournament in Montreal.

Head coach Matt Varnes, a teacher in Churchill’s hockey academy said the team went undefeated through five games in the three-day competition and won the final by a 3-2 score over Quebec’s Polyvalente Saint-François on April 21 at the Arena CCSSJ in Sainte-Julie, a Montreal suburb.

“We scored the winner with 22 seconds left, so the players were ecstatic and the coaches were relieved,” Varnes said. “We hadn’t had that close a game to that point.”

Next up for this Churchill squad, which was put together and began practising in February and March, is a WHSHL rookie tournament with teams from Miles Macdonell, J.H. Bruns and Garden City collegiates.

Team members are: Alexandre Andre, Tavian Barnes, Madden Baumen, Emil Beckerman, Kyran Broughton, Antonio Correia, Lucas Hoeppner, Brody Huver, Miles Joss, Carson Kasdorf, Hudson Kowalchuk, Tyden Lafournaise, James Nicholls, Nicholas Remple, Parker Rolston, Finn Spencer, Braeden Stewart, Ryan Strilchuk, Jimmy Wilcox.