The Guelph Buns Master Rollers floor hockey team is golden again.
The team won an unprecedented third gold medal at the Special Olympics National Winter Games last weekend in Corner Brook, Nfld.
"The guys just really dominated all their games," said co-coach Shawn Turner of a tournament that saw the veteran Guelph squad win all seven of its games at the tourney, including a 3-1 win over British Columbia in the final.
"I think we only allowed four or five goals the whole tournament," Turner said. "We didn't know it was going to be that easy. We thought we should win, but you never know."
Turner said the B.C. squad, which Guelph beat 12-1 earlier in the tourney, put up a great fight in the final.
The team will now wait to find out if Special Olympics Canada will select them to represent the country at the World Championships next year in Austria.
A formula using goals for, goals against and penalty minutes is used to determine which of the Canadian team gets to attend the worlds.
The Guelph squad last went to worlds in 2009 in Boise, Idaho.
Making this year's third national title all the more special, Turner said, is the fact that many of the players have been on the team for 20 years and this was their last national championship tournament, which is held every four years.
"This was the last run for a lot of the guys. A lot of them are going to be done. But you never know," Turner said. "But I think knowing this was probably the last kick at the can for a bunch of them helped make this one special."
Team members are Dan Jamieson, Andrew McTaggart, Mark Jamieson, Paul "Noodles" McTaggart, Michael Farley, Doug Dunk, Ben Tinholt, Pat Seeds, Jeff Trump, Jamie Walker, Ryan Blinn, Adam Guthrie, Daniel Ironmonger, Steve Slezsak and coaches Shawn Turner, Mark Cullen, Paul Turner, Ron Cambridge. Strength and conditioning coach was Doug Pflug.
