To celebrate our 25th season playing recreational ice hockey in Scotland, the Ayr Jets hosted a one day mini-tournament on 7th March 2009 at Ayr Ice Rink.
We welcomed two local teams (Hamilton Hawks & Irvine Flyers) as well as theYlen Oilers from southern Sweden.
The opening game saw the home team taking on local rivals, Irvine. Having been defeated 6-3 last Sunday at the Magnum, the Flyers came out and snapped up a two early goals to take a lead in the short two fifteen minute tournament format. Jets soon clicked into action with a few convincing plays of their own leading to a 6-2 win.
Ayr's second game was played against the visiting Ylen Oilers from Sweden who had a pretty good size advantage over the Jets. The majority of Ylen's players are between 35-50 years old and most have first team experience from the junior leagues in Scandinavia. The game was end-to-end for the duration of play but saw the Oilers win by one to zero in the end.
Jets' faced off with Hamilton Hawks for their third and last game of the round-robin stage. Hamilton played well and looked a lot stronger than the previous meeting, which saw the Ayrshire side runaway with a 34-1 win. However, Ayr still managed to control the game from the start and ended with a commanding 8-1 victory.
The 3rd & 4th place game saw Irvine defeat Hamilton 5-2 leaving the evening set for an Ayr Jets versus Ylen Oilers final. Both teams came out playing hard as was previlent in the earlier draw and Ayr managed to take a two goals lead with scoring from Jim Cosker & Michael Hose. It wasn't long until the Swedish players managed to claw a point back reducing their deficit to only one. Then an error by a Jets' rookie defenseman led to an own goal leaving the game swaying in the wind going into the last few minutes. A crafty on-the-fly line change from Ayr sent Andy Watt onto a breakaway from a Kidd pass to beat the Goalie of the Tournament up high for the game winning goal and a first place trophy. Final score Ayr Jets 3, Ylen Oilers 2.
Accolades: Top Point Scorer - John Kidd, Player of the Tournament - Gary Morris
