Some young Williams Lake hockey players won gold in Kelowna over the weekend, with a little encouragement from NHL superstar Carey Price.
Price stopped in for a pre-game visit for the Williams Lake U11 Timberwolves Development Team at a Kelowna tournament.
Assistant coach for the team, Tyler Fuller, is friends with Price, and had reached out to see if he was available to come and visit the team.
Head coach Jared Kohlen said when Price first walked into the dressing room, about 15 minutes before the final game, he was sporting a big beard.
While some of the players may not have recognized Price right away, someone piped up and said his name.
“I think they were all kind of star-struck a little bit.”
Kohlen said Price told the young players, when he gets asked what he misses most about not playing hockey anymore, it is those moments with the team in the dressing room before a big game he misses the most.
The coaches had been talking about the possibility of surprising the players, Kohlen said, after noticing other teams getting visits from NHL stars.
Kohlen said he himself had an experience like it when he was at a similar age. A teammate’s uncle played for the Boston Bruins and stopped by to see the young team when they were in Vancouver to play during a Canucks’s intermission.
“For me, that was something that has still to this day, stuck with me,” recalled Kohlen, noting now he thinks these young Timberwolves will have the same special memory.
Kohlen said while the Timberwolves team were down a few goals early in the final game they decided they wanted to win and came back to take the lead.
The players then went on to beat out West Kelowna 11-7 in the gold medal game.
“They were all working very hard and they deserved it,” said Kohlen.
The players were said to have “left it all out on the ice” throughout the Jan. 26-28 tournament according to the team’s Facebook Page.
Carey Price started out playing organized hockey in Williams Lake.
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