2018 U16 National Finals set for Montreal

After six months of intense competition, the NCL season will come to a close this weekend with the 2018 National Finals in Montreal. Four teams from each 16U category and five teams from each 19U category will descend on Montreal to try and claim the ultimate NCL prize, a National Championship.

The 16U competition will start on Thursday night at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. The four teams in each of the girls and boys competitions (the top two teams from the Eastern and Western Conferences) will play a three-game round robin to open the tournament. The top two teams at the end of the round robin will play for gold, with third and fourth playing for bronze.

At the 16U boys level, the Mavericks will be looking to win back to back national championships. They enter Nationals as the top team from the Eastern Conference, riding an unbeaten streak that has lasted over two years. Mavericks have three dynamic scorers in Patrick Almasi (100 goals), Lazar Todorovic (76 goals), and Sergije Vrbaski (74 goals), who are all top ten in the goal scoring race.

Montreal Machine’s 16U boys enter the tournament as the second team out of the East and are looking to build upon their third-place finish last year. Machine have their own prolific goal scoring threat in Leno Salamon, whose 102 goals during the regular season led the 16U division. Machine lost a tight 12-11 game to Mavericks in the Eastern Conference Finals and will hope to be able to return the favour at the National Finals.

On the West side, Pacific Storm’s 16U boys come into the tournament as the top team from the West. They lost to the Mavericks in the gold medal game last year and are looking to take that one final step up the podium this time around. They also have a high scoring offence which includes top ten scorer Connor MacMillan (70 goals).

The Spartans round out the 16U boys competitors, earning a place in their first ever National Finals by virtue of their silver medal at the Western Championships. Spartans enter the National Finals in the underdog role, as they are the only National Finals boys’ entry who were seeded outside the top two before the start of the conference championships. Spartans know they are more than capable of topping higher seeded teams though, as they proved in their run at the Western Championships