Postcards From Europe: April 27

The 2018 Nordic Hockey Trophy tournament got under way on Friday afternoon and the Jr. Avalanche played two pool-play matches against Finnish teams KooKoo and EVU. Before competition began, the players had a free day to hang with their billets where they checked out what school is like in Finland.
"It was kind of like an all-grade type of school. They had more breaks than we do and it was a shorter day overall. We also took our shoes off for school, which was pretty different," first-year goaltender Derek Wood said. "We got to talk to the class and see what they do during a normal day. We worked on some writing and I wasn't really good at that in Finnish."

The first game of the day versus KooKoo (Finland) went well for the Jr. Avs as they won 7-1.

"It was a good win. We skated hard and passed well throughout the game," Derek added.
Noah Grolnic scored a natural hat trick and A.J. Ulrich added another two tallies. Goaltender Kaleb Bartholomew backstopped the Jr. Avs to their first win of the tournament.
The Jr. Avalanche came up short in their second game of the day, falling 2-1 to EVU (Finland) on an unfortunate bounce with just three minutes remaining in regulation. Derek kept the team in contention with 23 saves in the game.

"The other team kept the puck in our zone, so I think we should work on getting it out quicker for the next game," said Wood.
Left wing Owen Miedema scored the only Jr. Avs goal on an assist from Grolnic.
After the game, the players were able to spend another evening with their local host families. The peewees will play one more pool-play game on Saturday morning before being re-seeded for playoffs in the afternoon.