Thursday, March 29, 2018 3 Brooklin Town Crier With 10 returning players from last year's experience, Brooklin High School's boys hockey team accomplished what had never been done by an LOSSA (Lake Ontario Secondary School Athletics) team: winning gold at the provincials in St. Catharine's. Meanwhile, the girls squad captured a bronze medal at the same tournament, thus solidifying BHS as a high school hockey powerhouse. The boys squad entered the OFSAA tournament as the number one seed, winning both of its first two games before dropping a 4-2 decision on the second day of competition to Holy Cross. As fate would have it, those teams would eventually meet in the final, with BHS winning 3-1. "Having those 10 guys back from last year helped quite a bit," says Ethan Markham, the team's self-styled GM and President of Hockey Ops who doubles as a phys. ed. teacher. "The first game was the toughest. It was at 8:15 in the morning on the first day, but we managed a 2-1 win." The boys team, with a 25 player roster all of whom saw some action at OFSAA, went 13-0 in the regular season and had an overall record of 23-2-1, with both losses coming in shootouts. "It was a bit of a dream team," Markham admits as it featured some impressive talent. A number of players opted to stick around to play high school rather than jumping to junior hockey. "We had a lot of blue chip talent." Goalie Damon Beaver sported a goals against average of 0.615 during the regular season. Jacob Winterton, who played AAA in Ajax-Pickering and was the MVP at the recent OMHA championships, had 42 points in 29 games. "With guys like that wanting to play," Markham says, "a lot of others decided to follow suit." Credit needs to go to head coach Matt Snowden, assistant Mike St. Louis, and the player leadership group headed by team captain Evan Cross and assistant captains Spencer Mazakian, Michael Belton, and Carson Johnston who, Markham points out, all provided "unbelievable leadership all year and especially in St. Catherine's." As for next season, about 10 are expected to return. "We'll always be deep," Markham says, "but certainly we'll need to find different ways to win." Gold + Bronze: A Great Week For BHS Hockey At OFSAA Boys' captain Evan Cross in action. A bench huddle during the championship final