Rebellion peewees win tournament gold

The King Rebellion peewee A team packed up a bus with kids, sticks, parents and snacks and headed off to Pittsburgh for the annual “Pittsburgh Veterans Cup” Tournament, held from Nov. 15 to 17 and returned tired but victorious with gold medals in hand.
After winning the first game Friday, handily “freezing out” the Fredrick Freeze with a 9-0 victory, King went on later that day to win against the Garden City Falcons 5-2 and then clinched a spot in the final with a 3-3 tie against East Gwillimbury Eagles, Saturday morning at the early start time of 7 a.m.
Goalies Max Zemp and Adam Larizza, literally “stood on their heads” throughout the tournament, making some outstanding saves, but also causing some tense moments for the crowd.
Through the gold medal game, Max stayed his usual cool self, to stave off the Garden City Falcons, who were also very hungry for that gold medal. Arriving in intimidating all black uniforms, designed to psych out their opponents, they played hard and refused to back down. Little did they know that King also had a secret weapon, “Hockey Dad” Steve McMahon who played the “I am a Champion” motivational speech over the loudspeaker, not once but twice on the bus on the way to the final game to get the team raring to go.
It was a nail-biter of a final, with a score of 0-0 at the end of the first. The Falcons scored in the second, giving them a 1-0 lead, and then with 5 seconds on the clock, King's Brandon Mrakovcic scored to tie it up.
Despite many shots and close calls, the game ended in a tie, setting off numerous parent's fitness monitors with “heart rate too high” warnings, and putting the game into sudden death overtime.
After numerous penalties on both sides, the final game winning goal came on a 3-on-5 advantage with 1:07 left on the clock. It was a beautiful goal by Dante Alaimo to give the King Rebellion Peewee A their very first tournament gold win.
At the same tournament the King Rebellion Atom A team was also in attendance. They seemed unstoppable with nothing but wins in all their match-ups but lost in the last seconds of another nail biting final to a team from Texas, to win the silver medal.
Congratulations to Head Coach Gerald McCann, and his coaching staff John Giglio, Daniel Giglio, Matt Monardo and Liam McCann. Special Thanks go to Nancy Pannia the team manager for keeping everyone in line, on time, fed, and organized with her untouchable excel spreadsheet skills.
In addition to those already mentioned, also on the team are Captain Andreas Kougias, Alternate Captain Julian Di Pietro, Connor McMahon, Dawson Cocciardi, Emiliano Friguglietti, Evan Smith, Gianluca Aloia, Guiliano Simone, Jack Marchese, Jake Porter, Justin Caruk and Noah DiGiovanni.