The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Three-on-three action in Flin Flon's Pee Wee hockey league has been a hit. Speaking of hits, with six players on the ice, there is lots of room to hit players in the Doe Doe's Pee Wee tournament. The fast paced action began on Oct. 13 and will finish with a championship game this Saturday at the Whitney Forum. "I think it's working really well," says organizer, Todd Quinn. "The lines are matched up, every kid gets the same amount of ice-time. You don't have some kids staying out for four minutes and some other kids only getting two minutes. I see nothing but good things out of the 3-on-3." Action up to this point has been fast-paced, with lots of scoring and Quinn has cracked a few smiles. "When you see the kids making certain plays and making certain hits and thinking out there, it's fun to watch," he says. "I just like watching them. This is fun hockey, this is a different style of hockey, we're going to go back to 5-on-5 after this and try it until Christmas and then maybe go back to another 3-on-3 tournament after Christmas for a month." The reason Quinn plans to have 3-on-3 return in January is because "you don't want to burn out a good thing." "Right now the kids are having fun, if you do it over and over again, they might not want to play it again," he explains. Quinn spoke to the players individually to find out if they would want to continue playing this style. Out of 38, 25 players would rather keep playing 3-on-3 then go back to regular hockey. "People are telling me they're having a lot of fun with this," Quinn added. "It's fast hockey, it's exciting hockey. The kids that are playing their own caliber are touching the puck way more than when they do in regular hockey because you'll get some kids that won't pass the puck." Games are mostly attended by parents, but Quinn has been impressed. "I can honestly tell you that, except for novice and hockey development, since my boys have been in Atom and Pee Wee, this is the first time that I have actually heard parents clap after the games, it's amazing," Quinn says. "They're enjoying it so much, that it's good hockey that even the parents are clapping for kids after the game. It's a long time since I've seen that so it's kind of neat to see that." First round of competition ended with the Blues being the top team with a 2-1 record. They scored 19 goals while allowing 15. The Sabres and Petro team finished with a 1-1-1 record and the Steelworkers were 1-2. During second round action which will be completed tomorrow, the Sabres are 2-0, while the Blues are 1-1 and team Petro and Steelworkers are 0-1. Games have been taking place every Monday, Thursday and Saturday.10/26/2005
