MONTAGUE – The Mid-Isle Wildcats keep winning.
The Wildcats won back-to-back P.E.I. Midget AAA Female Hockey League championships on Friday night. Mid-Isle pulled out a 1-0 win over the Kings County Kings to win the best-of-five final series 3-1, and earn the right to hoist the Dalziel Cup. The Dalziel Cup is named in honour of Susan Dalziel, a longtime supporter and promoter of female hockey on P.E.I.
The Wildcats, who finished first in regular-season play at 15-5-4 (won-lost-tied) and were 6-1 in the playoffs, will now represent P.E.I. at the Atlantic midget AAA female hockey championship tournament in Mount Pearl, N.L., from March 29 to April 1.
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Four one-goal games
To illustrate how closely matched the Wildcats and Kings were, all four games were decided by one goal, including two overtime decisions.
In Montague, Cassie Doiron scored what proved to be the series-clinching goal with 11:13 remaining in the third period to open the scoring. Charlotte Linkletter and Maggie Linkletter set up the goal, which set the stage for a nail-biting finish.
The Kings received a late power play and with the goaltender pulled for an extra attacker applied all kinds of pressure, but were unable to solve Wildcats goaltender Hannah LeClair, who notched the shutout.
Along with back-to-back provincial midget titles, this group of Wildcats also won the P.E.I. Bantam AAA Female Hockey League championships in 2015 and 2016. An interesting note is Doiron scored the winning goal 49 seconds into the first period of the deciding Game 5 to give the Wildcats a 1-0 win over Kings County.
“She book-ended our championship run so to speak,” noted Wildcats head coach Kevin Andrews.
Wildcats’ veteran blue-liner Madeline Hamill was named the most valuable player of the playoffs. Hamill scored two goals, including the winning marker in double overtime, in a Game 3 win that gave the Wildcats a 4-3 victory and their first series lead – 2-1. After dropping Game 1 by a 2-1 score, Mid-Isle answered with back-to-back overtime wins.
