The Kincardine Montgomery Ford Midget girls had a very busy past week with their two final provincial playdown games Tuesday and Wednesday, and the 34th annual Walter Gretzky tournament in Brantford on the weekend.

Tuesday night, the team travelled to Ripley to play the Saugeen Shores "C" team in a playdown game, having a successful night, demonstrating All-Ontario hockey play, and winning confidently, 4-0.

Wednesday night, the girls hosted the South Bruce "C" team for their final playdown game at the Davidson Centre. The Kincardine Kinucks took complete charge of this match, scoring goals in all three periods for a 7-0 victory and giving Sophia Tomaini her fourth shut-out in five playdown games!

With this win being the final game, the team swept the series with 28 goals for and one against. The Kinucks are now on their way to the All-Ontario girls Midget "C" playdowns in the Greater Toronto Area on the April 10 weekend to represent Kincardine Minor Hockey and try to bring home a medal.

The Kinucks will be competing in against 16 teams in their division, from 12 different leagues and regions. The girls will be working on staying active till then with some exhibition games and their WOAA year-end league tournament on the March 27 weekend.

This past weekend, the Ford girls and parents went to Brantford to play in the 34th annual Walter Gretzky tournament. With several levels and divisions, there were easily more than 220 teams competing.
In our division, there were nine teams. The girls intended to bring their game to Brantford but had played a lot of hockey all week, and had a handful of players still recovering from flu and cold symptoms.

The first game for the Ford girls was Friday afternoon, where they lost to Lucknow, 3-2.

Their next opponents were the Almaquin Gazelles, a good northern team, Friday night. Once again, with short periods, there is no room for error or time to catch up if you get too far behind. The Gazelles opened the scoring in the first period and the Ford girls tied it up a minute later.
In the second period, the Gazelles took a 2-1 lead and maintained that lead till about four minutes left in the third when the Kinucks scored to tie the game. However, because of the earlier game loss, the Kinucks were banking on a win. So, they took a chance, with 1:30 remaining on the clock, and pulled the goalie to try for the win.
Unfortunately, this backfired on the coaching staff and the team lost the game - a real heartbreaker! As it turned out, the tie would not have advanced the girls anyway.

The Kinucks played their third game against the Lambton Shores Predators, and the girls had fun as they beat this team in a close 1-0 game to regain their spirits! The girls then checked out of the hotel, finished the day with some shopping and returned to Kincardine to watch and cheer the Midget boys on at the Davidson Centre.

The girls have a game Wednesday, 8:30 p.m., at the Davidson Centre against TCDMHA of Chatsworth - a league make-up game.