"It's a lot of work."
Those are the words of Margo Gray, a member of the organizing committee for the Yorkton Peewee Tier II hockey tournament that was held this past weekend at the cities two hockey rinks, the Kinsmen Arena and the Farrell Agencies Arena.
Initially Gray didn't know that there would be so much work involved in organizing a tournament such as this. But once she and the rest of the organizing committee got down to work, they realized there is a lot of stuff to be done to get a tournament to run smoothly. "There is a lot of organizing, making sure you've got the game sheets ready, assigning locker rooms, running 50/50, drawing up the tournament, etc., "said Gray during the second intermission of a tournament game played at the Farrell Agencies Arena on Sunday. "There was a lot more hard work than I or anyone else thought there was going to be that's for sure."
But thanks to the organizing committee's hard work the tournament ran smoothly, with just a couple of minor incidents. "There have been a couple of little incidents of course which I'm not going to go into details about," mentioned Gray, continuing, "When you have 16 teams and this many people in just two rinks in a little city that's bound to happen."
Luckily the positives severely outweighed the minor negatives throughout the three day, 16 team tournament that saw three Yorkton teams do battle with 13 visiting clubs from around the province. "It's been a really, really good weekend of hockey," said Gray. "I've had lots of compliments on not just the tournament but the City of Yorkton as well."
While all 16 teams appreciated the work that Gray and company put forth, four teams in particular benefitted from the hard work. The Wynyard Monarchs, Weyburn Crescent Point Wings, Regina Mustangs and Clavet Cougars all skated away with some hardware. Wynyard won the 'A' side championship via a 7-2 victory over the Prairie Storm Lightning, Weyburn secured the 'B' side title with a 5-2 win over the Yorkton Mark's Work Wearhouse Terriers, Regina beat their Regina rivals the Cougars 4-3 to lay claim to the 'C' side title while Clavet edged past the Melfort Mustangs 4-3 to win the 'D' side.
