St. Anne preparing for OFSAA

The St. Anne boys hockey team opened the second semester with a 6-2 win over Holy Names. Captain Evan Cote scored a hat trick including the game winner in the second period. Sam Shephard pitched in a pair while Jake Polewski added a single for the Saints who improved to 3-1. "It was a tight game for a little bit and then we had a good shift and broke out there." said Cote.

The Knights, who dropped to 1-3-1 on the season, got a shorthanded tally from Nolan Cusinato to get on the board in the third period. Ryan Vallieres scored shortside on Hayden Laforet to cut the deficit to 4-2 but that's as close as the Knights would get. "I think we just got to work hard." said Cusinato. "They wanted the puck more at the end of the day."

St. Anne is hosting both the boys and girls provincial championship tournament starting March 21st. "It's coming fast." said Saints head coach Steve Burke who was ready to host the OFSAA championships in March of 2020 before the pandemic took hold. "The OFSAA committee said that we could have the next open date if we want it and it just happened to be 2023 and so we decided to take it on.

Burke says 32 teams and over 700 players will be in the area that week. His team is younger but has a good mix of older players like Cote and Shephard leading the way in their final year of high school. "It's pretty cool. We haven't been able to play very much because of Covid and it's really awesome." said Shephard.