Squamish hosted a mini West Coast summit series of sorts to relieve an abrupt end to a Seattle minor hockey league team's season last weekend. But rather than promoting a classic Canada-U.S. grudge match, the Pee Wee Rep Eagles and a group of Seattle House All Stars closed off the year with a friendly three-game series that meant little more than celebrating a common love for the game - a big thing in itself. Every year, the top players from the Seattle Junior Hockey Association's four House League teams are rewarded with a special trip to play an end-of-year tournament north of the border. Last year, the team traveled to Edmonton and this year parents and coaches planned to take the boys to Alaska."Our year-end thing really is a reward for the kids," explained head coach Craig Perley. "It's to show them a higher level of hockey and get them to a place where they can see that hockey is a way of life instead of where we are in Seattle."The Alaskan trip was cancelled for financial reasons. But luckily a family connection to Squamish meant the players could still cap off the year with some northern exposure.Squamish Eagle Kyle Luca got a rare chance to play puck against his American cousin, said manager Tom Sloan, who helped organize the event after hearing about the Seattle team's plight."We just wanted to have fun and let them have their last tournament of the year," said Sloan. "Having finished their season weeks ago, the Eagles pulled crusty gear from basements and garages and traveled to Langley to meet Seattle partway for game one. The Eagles soared to a 7-2 victory on Saturday (April 12) before returning to Squamish for the final two games.Early Sunday morning (April 13), the two teams faced off at Brennan Park for a doubleheader. The Eagles took the series in the first game with a 10-3 win. But Seattle battled hard in the second game to close a big deficit, but ended up falling 6-4 to the higher-level Squamish squad.The players exchanged pins and ball caps after finishing the last game with an exciting shootout - set up just for fun, of course. And that was the whole point, said Sloan. "You hear so many stories about the negativities of hockey - the fighting in juniors, the 11-year-olds in Ontario with the parents and the kids on the ice. It's so nice to do something nice for hockey."
