The 38th annual Richmond International Bantam Midget Hockey Tournament held its opening ceremonies Thursday night at Minoru Arenas as 53 teams do battle over the next three days to determine five division titles.
City councillor Bill McNulty dropped the puck for the ceremonial opening faceoff then fans were treated to a terrific Midget Tier One battle between the host Richmond A1 Jets and the Alaska U18 AA Wolves.
The American visitors jumped out to a 2-0 first period lead and held on for a 5-3 victory to improve to 2-0 in round-robin play. The Wolves had opened their schedule with a 9-1 romp over the North Central Bobcats earlier in the day.
The Jets twice pulled within a goal in the third period but Alaska had an answer each time. Ryan Xu, Montaro Uyeyama and Ethan Strik had the Richmond goals.
The hosts fell to 1-1 with the loss after opening their schedule on Boxing Day with an 8-3 win over the South Delta Storm. They are still in excellent shape to land a quarter-final berth with games remaining against Surrey today (3 p.m.) and North Central on Saturday (noon). Both take place at Minoru Arenas.
Meanwhile the A2 Jets are 1-0 in the Midget Tier 2 Division after an 8-3 win over Orange County U16 AA2. Serge Boyajian led the charge with a hat trick. Mark Polissky scored twice and Jora Bains had three assists.
Richmond is unbeaten after two games (1-0-1) in the Bantam Tier 2 Division thanks to a 2-0 win over Peninsula and a 4-4 tie with Surrey.
The four championship games will take place on Monday with the Bantam Tier Two and Tier Three finals being held at the Richmond Ice Centre at 10 a.m.
Minoru’s stadium rink will host the Midget Tier Three (8:30 a.m.), Midget Tier Two (11:15 a.m.) and Midget Tier One (2 p.m.) title games.
