U16 Lakers bowed out of the Whitby Silver Stick

The Huron-Perth Lakers U16 AAA participated in the 2025 Gloria Rants Memorial International Silver Stick in Whitby during the weekend of Nov. 27 through Nov. 30.

In preparation for the tournament, head coach Jason Brooks shared what it means to be part of the prestigious event.

“The Silver Stick is such an honour to be a part of. Some great teams and players have played there. It's a great opportunity for this group to represent the Huron-Perth Lakers organization there,” Brooks said.

“Obviously, with the 2009 team last year winning it, put Huron-Perth on the map there, hopefully our guys can go into that tournament and have a good showing. We have some very tough games ahead of us, but if we go out there, play our game, compete and give ourselves a chance, that's all I can ask.”

One of the reasons the Lakers have been a great team so far this season is the goaltending tandem of Rylan De Costa and Tyler Wilkinson. In regular-season play, the duo has posted a solid goals-against average of 1.92 and a record of 15-1-0-1 through 17 games.

Da Costa says his personal goal for the team is to compete and win the Silver Stick among the other primary goals.

“For the Silver Stick, it’ll be great to win it, just like the boys (2009) last year, and then try to get a championship here, because Alliance one, and then make the OHL cup,” Da Costa said.

Wilkinson is optimistic about the team's chances of competing in the Whitby tourney.

“I think we have a hard round robin, but we should be able to hopefully make it if we all work together and then see where we go from there,” Wilkinson said.

The Lakers started off the round robin with a 4-0 win over the Southern Tier Admirals on Nov. 27. Huron-Perth improved their record to 2-0 the next morning (Nov. 28) following a 4-3 win over the Rochester Bishop Kerney Selects but suffered their first defeat in a 4-3 decision to the Toronto Marlboros in the evening game.

On Nov. 29, the Lakers played a must-win game against the Detroit Little Caesars in the morning tilt. Unfortunately for the Lakers, their tournament play ended with a 5-2 loss, finishing 2-2 and in third place in Pool D.

Brooks was pleased with the Lakers' performance and their perseverance in the tournament.

“I was pleased with the way we played at Silver Stick. We got off to a great start, winning our first two games, beating Southern Tier and Bishop Kearney, which put us in an excellent situation. Unfortunately, we played a good Marlies team in our next game and had some injuries. We were down to seven forwards for that game. We played hard. Had a chance to tie it late, but unfortunately, came up short and lost," Brooks said.

“Then we played Little Caesars, and they're a tremendous team, and we lost 5-2 in that game, but again, came into some more injury difficulty, starting the game with seven forwards, getting down to six, but fought to the end against them, and as a coach, I was really proud of the group for their battle and compete and being in every game for the most part, was really, really positive.”

The Lakers resumed regular season play with two games at home at the Rotary Complex. They host the Elgin-Middlesex Canucks on Dec. 5 and the Waterloo Wolves on Dec. 7.