The 2016 Mega 5's tournament was an excellent learning experience for our Squirt team. While we were paired up against some of the toughest teams in Asia, the kids always played to the best of their ability, and had a good time doing it! Many lessons were learned about teamwork and positional play, particularly playing in the defensive zone. A good understanding of where we're at as a team and where we need to go for next year was shown and the kids are keen to get back at it for next season. Off ice our squirts had a chance to bond and show a great deal of team spirit, including ,for many, a chance to cheer on our Mini-Squirt and Bantam teams. Great work to all the DBees teams in this tournament.
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It was an exciting week for the Baird DBees mini squirt team at the 2016 MI5 tournament. We had a brand new goalie play in net for us after only practicing for a few months and he proved to be a natural! We also had a few players get their first goals as DBees throughout the week. The games were tough but the team never quit and many valuable lessons were learnt throughout the tournament. The mini squirts could also be heard throughout the rink when we were not on the ice laughing and playing while they watched some of the other DBees teams. This group is continually improving and always having more fun than anyone else in the rink! In the upcoming Mi5 Tournament in Hong Kong commencing April 25th, the Dbees will sponsor three teams who will wear the Baird Dbee colours of blue and white with yellow trim: Mini-Squirts, Squirts and Bantam. In addition, five of our Peewees will join the Singapore Dragons in the recreational division. Singapore Dragons are well known to the Dbees and we are delighted we could combine two teams to form one so all the players could participate in the tournament. It will be an exciting time for the players. Forty members of our Club will be participating in the tournament and our focus will be on making sure they have a thoroughly enriching week with plenty of fun and excitement. The Club is able to subsidize some of the tournament costs because of donations from two of our principal sponsors Robert Baird out of Wisconsin, USA and Air Canada, out of Montreal, Canada. My sincere thanks to our sponsors for their support and the best of luck to the players of the Dbee’s Hockey Club in the tournament.
Stuart Winchester Chairman DBees Hockey Club The Dbees have now started the second half of the season, continuing our practice sessions at Elements Ice Rink each Saturdaymorning. The decision to offer practice sessions to all players each week despite the additional costs is well accepted by the members.
It is our first season in a while that we did not field a team in the Typhoons League nor in the new League run by the HKIHA. It is our hope that hockey in Hong Kong results in an improved organisation structure before we consider applying to sponsor a team. In the meantime, the Club will focus its resources on the practice sessions which cost $20,000 a week. The Club is presently accepting applications from its members for the upcoming MI 5 tournament in Hong Kong during the last week in April. The divisions that we will enter teams in and the rosters will be published in March. In the first game in the best out of three final, Warriors opened the scoring but in the next shift, Baird Dbees answered with a goal of their own. One of the turning points in the game was Julian Mak's save against the nifty dekes of Yam Yau. Baird Dbees responded with two more goals in quick fashion and held on for a 5:3 victory and a I:0 lead in the series. The game against NOW TV was a hard fought affair that went back and forth. A crucial moment came when NOW TV's star player received a double minor for slashing that led to two goals for the Dbees. A late goal by NOW TV made for an exciting finish but good defensive work allowed the DBees to emerge victorious in game .
In the final game of the regular season, the Dbees started strong against Meco with a breakaway goal in the opening minutes by Nicholas Winchester after a nice feed from Moses Chang. Meco played tough though in the first ten minutes to keep the score 1:0 despite not having a coach behind the bench. They were well organized and knew their lines and seemed to relish the freedom. They played inspired hockey. However the Dbees pressure game and steady use of the defense in the offensive zone result in a few more goals. Meco eventually had Jordon So coaching and Preston Kwok join them when they were down 2:0. The game finished 6:2 so was a reasonably close contest. Two shorthanded goals from C and Moses Chang certainly helped deflate any comeback aspirations from the Meco squad. For the year, the line of Nicholas Winchester, Moses Chang and Ho Chung Cheng finished one, two, three in the league scoring. However, the defense core of Kristian Lavarone, Rex Poon, Wilson Mueller and Max Dubow were a big part of the setting up plays and defensively, the Dbees had the least amount of goals scored. Well done to Julian Mak for keeping those pucks out of the net. The remaining lines of Nolan Winchester, Jack Wessler, Will Zawada, Gordon Kean, and Gavin Hui showed great two way play and plenty of hustle to destabilize the opponents second and third lines. The upcoming playoffs will be fun and challenging for the Dbees.
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