Welcome to the DYHA Firebirds Peewee AA Team website.

 

Congratulations to the PWAA team, champions in their division for the 3rd Annual "Fun in the Sun" tournament in San Diego over the Labor Day weekend!

“ This is not why we came to San Diego boys!” was Coach Tim Watters response to his DYHA Firebirds Peewee AA team’s opening game loss of 0 -5 to the West Valley Wolves ’99 ‘s in the “Fun in the Sun” tournament hosted in San Diego this past Labor Day weekend. “We just came out flat! From our coaching staff to the players, we were just not mentally prepared to play Friday afternoon,” says Coach Charles Miscio of his team. Miscio is a proponent of team play and strong positive reinforcement across the bench. The DYHA  Firebirds Peewee AA team is comprised of a mix of 99’s and ’00 that generally do not sport a great deal of size. As the tournament was treated as a tune up for the up and coming season, Coach Blake Parker noted that “ We truly went to San Diego to get a stronger feel of how these boy’s will play together. We envisioned the opportunity to evaluate team chemistry and positional play.” What a difference a good night’s rest will bring! Over the course of the next three days, the Firebirds came out strong, playing the role of the underdog. Tremendous effort, team play and the “never quit” mentality produced success over the next three games for this gritty little team. Victories over the West Valley Wolves ‘00s, the SDIA Oilers and the California Bears gave the Firebirds one more shot at the West Valley Wolves ‘99’s in the Championship game. Coach Bob Juby believes “ a great deal of our success came in strong team play, great bench morale and a boost in confidence as we began stringing together the wins.”

The Championship pre -game speech was short and sweet, “ This is a gut check boys! Good things happen when we use our speed and play our position.” Goals by Josh Tucker and Joey Miscio proved to be enough for the 2-1 banner win. Goalie Brady Parker made several brilliant plays in net and allowed good line changes with his consistent ability to freeze the puck.  Coach Miscio is extremely proud of the team’s ability to put game 1 on the back burner and focus on the battles at hand. “ We truly play as a team, there are no superstars.  We win as a team and lose as a team - period. I could make mention of each and every one of our boys’ great success over the weekend.  If needed to point out a few particulars, I would congratulate Josh Tucker and Joey Miscio for their ability to get the puck to the back of the net on several occasions, the fore check of Cameron Pazul was relentless, Trent Nietzel was as steady as they come playing in his defensive role and Brady Parker was our backbone between the pipes. Again, I must emphasize that this was a true team effort. It is what we did without the puck that found us to be so successful!  Watters summed up the weekend with

“It was an overall gritty team effort. The team played a good positional game against teams that were often much bigger than us and the team found ways to manufacture goals when needed. Goaltending was solid the whole weekend, teamwork at both ends of the ice was instrumental in the win.”