It was a great weekend on and off the ice for the Moose Jaw Peewee AA Warriors.

The local team hosted the second annual Moose Jaw Festive Sweater Classic at the Red Knight Arena with five teams from Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan coming to the Friendly City for three-day tournament.

The Warriors fought their way all the way into the championship game before falling 6-5 to the Martensville Marauders on Sunday afternoon.

“It was a good weekend, we battled hard in this last game, got up and then went down with a couple-minute lapse, but they’re a good team over there and we battled hard to come back and just about got there,” said Warriors coach Darren Pratte.

The final was tied 3-3 heading into the third period, but the Marauders struck for three goals in the opening 5:03 of the frame to take control of the game.

The Warriors started to push back as the period went on and Brendan Gerbrandt pulled them within two with 4:10 to go in regulation. 

The pressure continued to come from the Warriors and captain Rowan Calvert banged in a rebound in front with just 31 seconds left to make it a one goal game, but Moose Jaw couldn’t find the equalizer with their net empty.

“We did pretty good this weekend,” said Warriors goalie Brady Bourdeau, who put together a strong performance in Sunday's final. “We were having good hard passes and good shots.”

Bryce Boughen scored a pair and Hadyn Hydyma picked up a goal and three points in the loss on Sunday for the Warriors.  Calvert also added two assists to his third period goal and Liam Fitzpatrick picked up a pair of helpers in the loss.

Warriors forward Bryce Boughen fires a shot past Martensville goalie John MacPherson during Sunday's final. (Photo: Marc Smith)

The tournament uses a different scoring system to award points during the round robin.  Teams pick up one point for winning a period, a half-point for tying a period and then two points for a win and one point for a tie game.

Moose Jaw finished first in their pool with eight and a half points. They opened the tournament on Friday by skating to a win over the Winnipeg East Railcats, who featured the little brother of Moose Jaw Warriors defenceman Jett Woo. Moose Jaw then followed that with a loss to the Marauders on Saturday morning, before collecting a win over the Okotoks Oilers in their second game on Saturday.

“Overall on the weekend, we really came a long ways, the kids started moving pucks and buying into the systems that we’re trying throw out there at them, so it was good hockey,” said Pratte.

There’s a Christmas theme to the tournament with coaches wearing Christmas sweaters on the bench and decorations around the rink. A number of the players on this year’s Peewee AA team hosted the tournament last year at the Peewee A level and it was a hit again this weekend.

“Hockey is a long year and it’s pretty intense throughout the whole year, so this is a good fun time where the hockey is still good, but the kids get to have a bit of a relaxing weekend and have fun,” said Pratte.  “We got a lot of positive feedback from the other teams.  Overall they were happy with things.”

The Warriors entered the tournament after losing three straight league games, but Pratte said he saw their confidence improve as they had success over this weekend.

“We’re coming along very nicely, we’d like to have a few more wins under our belt, but we’re right there against some of the top teams in the league, so hopefully after Christmas we’ll bring it,” said Pratte.

The Warriors return to league play this week in the South Saskatchewan Minor Hockey League as they travel to Melville for games against the Millionaires on Friday and Saturday.