Gorsalitz Grizzlies: Welcome
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Welcome to the home of the MacDermid Lamarsh Gorsalitz Grizzlies! A website for the Grizzlies of yesterday and today!
Our 12th Year Going Strong
1996-1997 City Champions
1996-1997 Regular Season Champions
1997-1998 City Champions,
1997-1998 Regular Season Champions
1997-1998 Minor Hockey Week Champions
2001-2002 Regular Season Champions
2002-2003 Minor Hockey Week Champions
2004-2005 Minor Hockey Week Champions
2004-2005 Regular Season Champions
2004-2005 City Champions
2005-2006 Regular Season Champions
2005-2006 City Champions
2006-2007 MINOR HOCKEY WEEK Champions
2006-2007 Regular Season Champions
2006-2007 City Champions
For the last 12 years the Gorsalitz Grizzlies have been an integral part of the Atom level Hockey program in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Team work and hard effort are the hall marks of the Grizzlies every year. Their motto is, "You will never fail in the attempt if you succeed in the effort." The Grizzlies have been blessed with great coaching over the past seven years and many thanks must be given to those gentlemen that started and continue the tradition that the Grizzlies strive for every year. Randy Lustig was the first coach of the Grizzlies in their inaugural year and brought home the House League and City Championships. Dave Sheaves followed in his foot steps and brought to the Grizzlies a triple crown winning every city tournament and claiming both league and city championships. Gord Ball took on an Atom B team the following year with a full complement of 4 girls on the team, ... a first for minor hockey. Bob Murray, former head coach of the Alberta Junior A Oil Barons coached the Atom A team the subsequent year. He is currently being heavily recruited in Italy to coach and organize a hockey system in one of their northern communities. The 2000-2001 contingent was coached by Francois Gagnon who guided the Grizzlies to a successful campaign but just falling short of a championship. The 2001-2002 contingent started slow but after a reconfiguration to a 5 team division got on a roll. Coached by Roy Vermillion and sporting no less than 4 aborinal young men on the roster. The Grizzlies of this season duplicated the results of the inaugural Grizzlies by taking 2 of 3 championship trophies. In 2003 the Grizzlies remained fairly competative during the regular season and were able to grab the 2003 Minor Hockey Week Championship trophy. The 2003-2004 version of the bears also gave it a good run finishing third in the championship tournament at the end of the season. The 2004-2005 contingent was coached by Collin Feser (a 1985 Memorial Cup Champion in his own right) and was able to bring to the club alot of experience which resulted in the bears winning all three Atom A championship trophies ! In 2005-06 Brian Doucette took over the reigns of the Grizzlies and led them to win both the Regular Season Championship and the year end tournament. Brian returned for another go in 2006-07 and brought home the elusive TRIPLE CROWN winning all three major City Championships, a task completed by the Grizzlies three times in the last 11 years.
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Wednesday, November 7
I was contacted by the team manager today advising that we have once again lost our ice time this weekend as a result of the Mac Island shutdown and a reallocation of our ice to the lower divisions.
Given that this is something that is completely beyond our control I would urge every parent of every team to contact the mayor's office and lodge your complaint and displeasure about the situation.
Mayors office 743-7009
Regional Manager's office 743-7023
Voice your displeasure and let them know how dissatisfied you are with the turn of events. Hopefully, if enough people complain it will shake our city council out of complacency and actually get to work on addressing this extremely pressing matter.
Thursday, November 1
The roster of this years contingent of bears has been finalized. If you click on the roster menu on the left hand side of the screen it will take you to this years roster with player names and numbers. As I get more information from the coach the roster will be updated with more information and hopefully some player pictures. If I have mispelled any names on the roster please let me or the team manager know so that corrections can be made.
Your first game this weekend was cancelled to accomodate a ringette tournament. If you scroll to the bottom of this page you will see your most recent game and practise schedules posted.
Monday, October 29
With the preseason set of games now behind us the Minor Hockey executive will go about the business of shuffling the rosters of all of the Atom A teams in an effort to produce 5 balanced squads. I suspect that before long the Grizzlies will know who are going to make up this years contingent of bears. I will make arrangements to get to some of the games and will bring a profile information sheet that you and your parents can fill out for me and then over the course of the season if someone from the club can get player photos I can have them posted on the roster section of the site with the players profile information.
Congratulations to those players that have been selected to play for this years squad. Good luck in the upcoming season!
The information provided to me from the Minor Hockey Office shows 3 games in November.
Sunday November 4, 2007 at 7:15 am at Thickwood Heights Arena
Saturday November 17, 2007 at 11:45 am at Frank Lacroix Arena
Sunday November 25, 2007 at 1:30 pm at Frank Lacroix Arena
Please confirm dates and times with Coach Connelly as the game times are subject to change from time to time.
Wednesday, September 5
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| WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS |
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Well another season has come and gone and the boys in black brought home all the hardware this year. Great goaltending, great teamwork, good defensive positionings, and lots of passing made this years squad the most successful in the history of this organization. You should all be proud or your accomplishments grizzlies as most of you will move on to bigger and better challenges. This year was a triple crown year, with these boys winning all three City championships. But that was not enough for this crew as they went to Cold Lake and won it all in an invitational tournament down there, and won the C Pool in another event out of town.
Congratulations to you all for the great year of entertainment and hopefully the success you enjoyed this season will carry forward with you next season wherever you may be playing. Further congratulations to the Esso players for the hockey club. Cory "the Kipper" Hynes was the most dedicated player, not an honour that is usually bestowed on goaltenders. Austin Hiscock received the most improved award, for his worthy effort game in and game out. His skating and confidence with the puck certainly grew exponentially over the course of the season. Finally the most sportsmanlike esso award went to defenseman Joshua Dees, who although small in stature was a stallwart on the backend for the hockey club. Congratulations gentleman on those fine honours.
To the rest of the crew, thanks again for giving me another great year of hockey to watch and follow. Kudos as well to your parents who are always a part of this thing we call the Gorsalitz Grizzlies,.... quite frankly without their help and inspiration in the stands we would never be as successful as we are. Finally a huge thanks to all the coaching staff who once again proved that instilling in these young players the whole notion of TEAM WORK. As I have always said Grizzlies team work has been the secret to our success. Keep that in mind as you move on next year..... cuz I will be watching.
Saturday, February 24
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Mark Jean wanted to match the offensive out put of his teammate Miller and in an effort to keep pace opened the scoring in the second period when cruised into the slot at 16:40 and caught the Philly netminder guessing in the wrong direction sliding a shot away from the goalie on his glove side. This made the score 4-1 until the Phantoms answered back to make it a two goal difference at 10:05 when the Philly forward snuck a quick wrister though the pads of netminder Cory Hynes. The remainder of the second period would be mostly in the Phantom zone as all of the d men were successful in standing it up on the blue line and challenging in the offensive zone. Mullhall, Whelen, Dees and Page were all strong on the puck this game and made it very difficult for any offensive thrusts to get by them. Quick, Troutman and Hiscock also displayed some brilliant skilled work in the offensive zone often keeping the puck inside the zone which created many more scoring opportunities.
The third period started like the second with the Grizzlies getting on the board first once again. This time it was affiliate call up Caleb Cober doing the dirty work by scoring on a nice breakaway effort at the 13:19 mark to give the Grizz a 5-2 lead. With 1:39 left in the game the Grizz kept coming when Captain Doucette took a nice feed from call up Cober to get his first of the game. Finally, Miller knowing that Jean had matched his output earlier in the contest one upped his teammate by getting his hattrick goal with just 1:25 to go in the game. That sinched the deal for the grizzlies with a 7-2 victory and clinched their claim to the regular season championship bragging rights.
No time to rest on your laurals however Grizzlies, you have another battle set for Thickwood Heights Arena at 4:00 p.m. tomorrow. Keep up the hard work, smart positional play and great passing efforts and I am sure another victory will come your way to end the regular season.
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With Cory Hynes between the pipes and led by some stellar defensive play the Grizzlies would show their true grit this time out. Just one minute into the game Cole Miller was johnny on the spot and stuffed a goal mouth scramble past the outstretched glove of net minder Dugles putting the bears on the board first with a 1-0 lead. Greg Doucette added to that at the 8:30 mark with a nice wrap around effort from behind the net. The score at the end of one period was 2 for the bears and donuts for the Phantoms.
The Phantoms tighted up the defence in the second period and held the bears off the board for most of the 20 minutes, however with just under 5 minutes to go Austin Court gave the Grizzlies a 3-0 lead when he used his exceptional hand eye coordination to stuff in a bouncing puck in the crease. Then one minute later the Grizzlies had a goal called back when what would have been back to back goals by Court was nullified as a result of the net being off the mooring. Not to be thwarted however, the Grizzlies continued to press and with less than 7 seconds left in the middle frame were able to establish a 4 goal lead when Cole Miller went in on a breakaway, took the initial shot and had the rebound come right back to him for the easy deposit into the phantom net.
The Grizzly defensive corp were stellar in this contest and held the phantoms to less than ten shots the entire game. When the phantoms were able to sustain pressure and get a puck through Cory Hynes saw all the action and had little difficulty thwarting their efforts.
In the third period the Grizzlies continue to apply pressure and were awarded with 2 more markers. The first by Ty Troutman at the 18:30 mark. Ty came out from the corner in the offensive zone and fired a quick wrister that surprised the Philly netminder. 4 minutes later Doucette would add his second of the night at 14:26 when a hard wrist shot from the top of the face off circle deflected off the Philly defenceman's skate and completely fooled their goalie. The final score in this championship game was 6-0 and was by far the most impressive victory for the Grizzlies this season. Congratulation Bears on continuing that tradition of excellence. Good luck for the remainder of the season.
In the Bronze medal game the fans were treated to a real barnburner as the Kings Court squad jumped into to a quick 2-0 lead. This eventually evaporated when the Bartan Blizzard battled back in the second period. At the end of the regulation time the two squads were notted at four a piece. Two overtime periods settled nothing and a sudden death shootout was required to determine the winner. Eventually, with what seemed to be an eternity the Kings Court Barbers came out on top to take the Bronze medal, the first time in three years that the Blizzard did not medal during minor hockey week.
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Thursday, January 18
| Team | Games Played | Wins | Losses | Ties | Points |
| Gorsalitz Grizzlies | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 9 |
| Phantom Phillies | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| Kings Court | 6 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| Bartan Blizzard | 6 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| Novice Baron Reps | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 9 |
Saturday, January 27
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Although goals galore were scored in our last two contests, the defensive crew led by Mitchell Mulhall were not going to let this one get away on them and for the rest of the contest they shut down the philly barage of opportunities giving Hynes lots of vision to see anything coming his way. Greg Doucette notched the two goals for the bears in this one distributing his efforts evenly between the last two periods. Both twine benders were a result of breakaway opportunities which allowed Doucette to bury those biscuits topself on both occasions.
The real stars in this one though were the dmen who clogged up the slot so bad that it was a plumbers nightmare. Time and time again be it Josh Dees, Ty Troutman, Mark Jean, or Gaige Page, they blocked shots, intercepted the passes in the slot, or just simply forced the driving forwards wide on the offensive rushes. Player of the game honors went to Mitchell Mulhull who was a defensive force all morning.
Well done bears, good luck on Sunday when you go for GOLD!
Saturday, January 13
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| Hynes set for the breakaway | |
The game wasn't the prettiest of victories and with a shortened bench the task to extend the winning streak was going to be a tough one. However, once the bears got back to their passing game in the last half of the contest their was little doubt that victory number ten on the season wasnt far behind.
Well done bears, keep up the good work!
Saturday, December 2
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We lost a Canadian Hockey Alumni this morning at 2:11 a.m . Todd Davison was a remarkable young man who hoped to have a thriving career in the Western Hockey League and because of circumstances beyond his control was unable to pursue that aspiration. He ultimately continued the love of his game in the Alberta Junior Hockey League where he played a season with the Lloydminster Blazers. Unfortunately, after a diagnosis of Cancer in his shoulder he played his last Junior Hockey game in Fort McMurray Alberta on February 24, 2005. Not to be brought down by his rare and deadly cancer Todd fought a valiant battle, continuing his love of the game by assisting in the coaching of a AAA Midget Squad out of Winnipeg Manitoba.
His tremendous dedication to the game and his unwavering spirit during his battle will be remembered by many. This past summer, despite his ongoing battle with Cancer, he organized a fundraiser that was held in Selkirk which raised over $50,000 for Cancer research. (If you want to hear his last interview promoting his fundraiser it can be found at www.focusfitness.ca/podcast/index.htm. Look for "the lockeroom - davidson interview")
The Blazer/Bobcat organization and our hockey fraternity has lost a truly remarkable ambassador of not only the game but of life as well. Todd, if you only knew the inspiration you provided to your family and friends. I am at a loss,........ my prayers are with the Davison family. We will, as you always did, continue to BELIEVE!
Todd Davison, lost to us at the tender age of 19. You will always have a place in our hearts.