Two local teams earned medals in Harvest Classic

Thirty-six hockey teams from across the province, including five from Niagara-on-the-Lake, took over both rinks at Virgil’s Centennial Sports Park for the annual Harvest Classic hockey tournament hosted by the NOTL Wolves. 

When it was all over, two Wolves teams had captured medals — a gold for Joe Pagnotta’s Under-11 rep team and a silver for Adam Whyte’s Under-16 contact team. 

Pagnotta was ecstatic following his team’s 2–1 win over the Toronto Avalanche to take the top prize for their six-team age group. 

“These kids came to play,” Pagnotta said Monday night. “We’re only a month into the season and we’ve already made a lot of progress. That’s not based on wins and losses, but we’re getting better and they’re doing what we’re asking of them. And they all seem to be picking it up.”

Backstopped by goalie Vincenzo Coppola, the U11 Wolves blanked the Avalanche 1–0 in the first game in the round-robin stage Friday. They followed that up Saturday morning with a 4–1 win over the Barrie Colts, led by goals from Tennyson Powell, Benjamin Bayne, Luke Simpson and Nello Pagnotta. 

But they lost to Midland 2–1 Saturday evening, when the challenges of playing five games during flu and cold season began to show themselves.

“It was a fun tournament, but we had a pretty sick team,” Pagnotta said Monday night. “We had a lot of kids coming out of coughs, high fever, lots of kids had to miss a game or two. In the loss to Midland, our team just didn’t have the energy. They were all beat up in the sense of not feeling well.”

Still, they finished first in their pool, and played Ingersoll Sunday morning in the semi-final. James Froese scored twice and Nello Pagnotta added a single as the Wolves punched their ticket to a rematch against the Avalanche with a 3–1 victory.

In the final, Luke Simpson scored midway through the second period, but Toronto tied it up just a few seconds later. Simpson followed up with the game-winning goal in the third to ice the victory. 

Pagnotta credited his fellow coaches, Sean Simpson, Glen Davis and Derek Nicholls for their help with the team. Their next tournament is a Silver Stick event in Midland the weekend of Dec. 2 through 4.

Adam Whyte’s U16 squad faced a tough route to the final game, with a record of 1-1-1 in round-robin play. After a tie with West Niagara and a loss to Stittsville, they needed the win over Haldimand in game three to move on. 

“We played really good defensively in that game,” Whyte told The Local. “We got a great goal in the second period (from Noah Whyte) to take a 2–1 lead and shut them down the rest of the way. That was a really important win because it got us higher in the standings overall.”

Their semi-final game against Halton Hills featured a number of nail-biting moments before it ended in a 3–3 tie. NOTL fell behind 2–1 with just a few minutes left. Whyte pulled goalie Quinten Davis and the Wolves were able to tie it up. 

Thinking they needed to win to get to the final, Whyte pulled Davis again, and they gave up an empty net goal to fall behind 3–2. Then, with seven seconds left, and Davis back on the bench in favour of the extra attacker, Noah Whyte got the puck off the faceoff and buried it behind Halton Hills goaltender Josh Frost. 

After the faceoff that followed the tying goal, Frost was called for a delay of game penalty, and NOTL was awarded a penalty shot and a chance to win the game. Frost made a great save to preserve the tie. 

But they made it into the final anyway against Stittsville, based on head-to-head competition.

The two teams traded goals, skating to a 2–2 tie in regulation time. In the second three-minute, four-on-four overtime period, Stittsville’s Owen Vezina scored the winning goal for the win. 

“We haven’t had two Niagara-on-the-Lake teams in the finals in this tournament in a long time,” convenor Gino Patterson said. “It was exciting to see. Unfortunately, they were both scheduled to play at the same time, but luckily one of the games got delayed. And that was a good thing, because Glen Davis coaches both teams and had to run from one arena to the other.”

The U13 Wolves lost their three tournament games, to Paris, Lindsay and Fort Erie, while the U15 contact team had a 0-4-0 record. The U18 Wolves beat Sarnia, tied Ingersoll, and lost games to Lambeth and Haldimand. 

More than 275 volunteers were involved in making the tournament run smoothly. And about the same number will be needed in four months’ time to help Patterson run the annual March Break Classic for House League teams. 

The U-11 players play against Lambeth on Saturday