They caught a little sun, spent time with their wives and along the way managed to play a little hockey, not bad for a trip to Hawaii.
The Quesnel Goldpanners hockey team, known mostly for their charitable work rather than their prowess on the ice, came home from a hockey tournament in Hawaii with a first-place finish tucked into their hockey bags.
“It was fun,” Goldpanner Bruce Broughton said of the annual Hawaii Ice Hockey Old-Timers tournament, held April 17 - 20 at the Ice Palace Hawaii in Honolulu, Hawaii.
“Winning the tournament was fantastic.
“But the camaraderie with the guys was the best part.”
The Goldpanners, with an average age of 46.5 years, played in the oldest division, Broughton explained.
Cheered on by their cheerleading wives, the team from Quesnel went through round-robin play against three other teams in their division with just a single loss to another Canadian team, a team from Nanaimo.
“They were our toughest competition,” Broughton said.
“They beat us 5-1 in round-robin.”
The two teams faced off again in the finals where the Goldpanners pulled out all the stops to take home the division championship with a 2-1 win.
“It was a very close game,” Broughton said.
Another tough team for the Goldpanners was a team from Anchorage, Alaska.
“They were good,” Broughton acknowledged.
“But we beat them 2-1 in the semi-final game.”
The easiest game of the tournament came against a team from Hawaii.
“It wasn’t much of a game,” Broughton said.
“I think we won 10-1, I’m not sure what the final score was.”
The score could have been worse, but the Goldpanners decided to take it easy after they scored three goals on the penalty kill.
“That put us up 6-0,” Broughton said.
“Then we backed off.”
The shutout bid was lost on a weak goal that Goldpanners netminder Bill McMillan should have had, Broughton said with a smile.
Although the tournament was in Hawaii, Broughton said the ice conditions were quite good.
“The arena is well insulated and they kept it quite cool, so the ice was actually not bad to play on.”
This was the Goldpanners second trip to the Hawaiian tournament and in all likelihood not the last.
“We just had a fantastic time the whole time we were there,” Broughton said with a wistful smile.