Ice Pups win the mite championship

Shown are members of the champion mite Ice Pups team.

After a great season in the Tim Horton's mite division, the Ice Pups won the "A" division championship 6-4 over the Mite Leafs after a hard battled game during Little Champs weekend.

All of the games played during the final weekend of play were close, with the Sharks winning 4-3 over the Habs and the Wild winning 3-2 over the Penguins. Scoring for the Ice Pups in the big game were Bailey Rocca, with a hat trick (3), Connor Chisholm (2) and Karson Proulx with one. Assists for the Ice Pups were awarded to Karsen Proulx, Brandon Lee, Lachlan Thornton, Zoe Boyd, Daniel DiDomizio, Paton Dorval, Lucas Goulding and Nathan Daniel.

Ice Pups goaltender Joseph Quadrini played an awesome game between the pipes, turning away several Leaf chances in the final period of play.

The Habs and the Sharks also had an exciting game, with the Sharks edging the Habs 4-3. All four goals for the Sharks came from Travis Mailhot. The Habs goals were scored by Jordan Donatelli (2) and Paolo Iozzo, assisted by Thomas McKeown and Owen Allen. Goaltenders Connor Mizzen for the Habs and Bryce Thompson for the Sharks were both solid in net through the entire game.

The final game on mite Little Champs was between the Wild and the Penguins, two teams who battled hard all season. The Wild beat the Penguins with some spectacular goaltending from Lucas Ficele, who stopped several breakaways and shots in close from the Penguins. Wild goals were scored by Michael Hill with 2, and Joseph Burel adding a single.

Penguins goals were scored by Matthew Sheridan, with a nice breakaway and Justin Eccleston after aggressively crashing the net with a hard-earned and timely goal. Penguins goalie Justin Correa also had a strong outing through all 3 periods of play.

For the third consecutive year, Caledon Minor Hockey has continued to run the OMHA (Ontario Minor Hockey Association) sanctioned CHIP program. The format of the CHIP (Canada Hockey Initiation Program) is based on the idea that all hockey players at the entry level should be practising within groups of equal skill level and that practices should be divided into 3 or 4 "skill stations" concentrating on the fundamentals of hockey (skating, stick handling, shooting, passing). All CHIP practices are designed to offer young players a high degree of repetition when practising fundamentals and to ensure that there is constant activity on the ice to keep the players interested and moving as much as possible.

Since its implementation back in 2004, the CHIP program in Caledon has gone a long way in helping develop players who move on to participate in Caledon rep hockey as well as develop all house league players within the younger age groups (mite, tyke, hockey school).

The 2006/2007 mite season was a great indication that the CHIP program is alive and well in Caledon and continues to offer young players development second to none in Ontario.