U11B North Bay Junior Lakers Crowned Ontario Women’s Hockey League Southern Champion
Almost 1 year after the North Bay Ice Boltz U11B team won the OWHL Northern league championship, in the inaugural season as the Junior Lakers the U11 B team found themselves on top once again. This season the U11B Junior Lakers took on the larger task of playing in the Ontario Women’s Hockey League Southern Division, a league that is much larger than its Northern counterpart with 32 teams participating.
To get to the championship, the U11B Junior Lakers needed to finish the regular season in the top four of their division, they did earn a spot in the championship bracket by finishing the regular season with a 16-4-0 record sitting just behind the Orillia Hawks. In the division play round of the play-offs the Junior Lakers went 5-1-0 against teams from Orillia, Barrie and Collingwood. The Junior Lakers were then named Central North Division Champions!
This earned the team a spot in the conference championship series where they faced a strong team in the Oshawa Lady Generals, game one in the best of two series ended in a 3-3 tie, the two teams then headed north to play game two at Pete Palangio arena where the Junior Lakers earned a 4-2 win to advance to the OWHL Southern Championship.
On Saturday April 6th the Junior Lakers headed south for an early 9am Championship game at Westwood Arena in Etobicoke vs the Brantford Icecats. The game featured back and forth action and timely saves by goaltenders at both ends of the rink! Just past the midway point of the game Fiona Manning took a shot that went top corner to give the Lakers a much needed 1-0 lead. In the final frame, the Junior Lakers worked hard to hold onto the lead. With 15 seconds remaining Kaitlyn Zarifa would get the insurance goal on the empty net. Lucy Courville would go on to earn the shutout in the championship game as the Lakers held on to win 2-0!
Congratulations to all players and coaches of the 2023-24 North Bay Junior Lakers on a well-earned Championship title!
