The Moose Jaw Warriors duo capped a stellar performance at the four-team tournament with a silver medal in the title game on Wednesday night, as their Canada Red fell 5-4 in overtime to Canada Black.
The event featured three teams of under-17 players from across the country taking the ice alongside the National Women’s Team at TD Place in Ottawa, home of the OHL’s Ottawa 67’s.
The gold medal game couldn’t have been closer, either, as Zach Benson of the Winnipeg Ice scored in the final seconds to send things to overtime only 29 seconds after Prince George’s Riley Heidt gave Canada Red a 4-3 lead. Yager drew an assist on what appeared at the time to be the tournament-winning goal.
Unger got the start for the fourth-straight game for Canada Red and turned aside 35 shots in taking the loss.
The event was the first Hockey Canada assignment for both players, and they put together a solid showing from the opening puck drop.
Yager finished tied for fourth in tournament scoring with four goals and seven points, which included a goal in Canada’s 7-2 loss to Canada Black to open the tournament on Nov. 26, followed by another marker in a 7-0 win over the National Women’s team on Nov. 27 and a goal and assist in Red’s 4-2 win over White on Nov.28.
Yager also put up a goal and an assist in Red’s 6-2 victory over White in the semifinal on Tuesday.
Unger emerged as the tournament’s top goaltender with a 2.17 goals against average and .927 save percentage, good enough to lead the Challenge in both categories.
That included a 22-save shutout against the National Women’s team to go along with a 26-save showing in the round robin win over White and 31-stop performance in the semifinal.
Warriors assistant coach Gord Burnett was also in action at the tournament, working as an assistant for Team Red with head coach Kris Mallette of the Kelowna Rockets.
Benson ended up leading the tournament in scoring with seven goals and five assists.
Both Yager and Unger were back in action with the Warriors on Thursday night in Calgary, with Unger stopping 13-of-16 shots in relief of Carl Tetachuk and Yager drawing an assist on Moose Jaw’s lone goal as they dropped a 7-1 decision.
Stats and streams for the entire Capital City Challenge are available on www.hockeycanada.ca.
