Capone's team: CANAM hockey tournament gold medal winners

The Capone's mens hockey team captured the gold medal at the CANAM hockey tournament in Las Vegas May 3-5 with teams from Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia and from Utah, California, Idaho, Washington and Massachusetts.

First up was Westfield, Mass., who went ahead 3-0 and 5-3 end of the first period and midway through the second period respectively. Capone's didn't tie the game until the middle of the third period by Joel Riner's hard snap shot coming out of the corner with assists to Mark Jackson and Lindsay Gorrill.

Westfield jumped ahead again and Capone's was down 6-5 with Rich Befus in the box for roughing with only 1:15 left in the game. Capone's scored two shorthanded goals in this span - Nate Hale scored the tying goal with 1 minute remaining and Dan Lysek scoring with 8 seconds left to win the game, both assisted by John Johnson.

Capone's next game was against Park City, Utah, where Capone's led from the beginning and never looked back, winning 6-3 on hat tricks from Nate Hale and John Johnson.

The team's third game against Kamloops, B.C., a must-win to move onto the gold medal game, found Capone's down 2-0 at the end of the first period. Capone's tied it 2-2 early in the third period - both goals from Hale, assists to Johnson, Befus and Knudsen. But Rick Knorr took the only penalty in the third period for tripping and Capone's found itself on another penalty kill late in a must-win game.

Tom Seibert stole the puck in the neutral zone and headed down the right wing, faked a shot and provided a rushing Erik Knudsen a perfect backhand saucer pass who put it in for the 3-2 win. Dusty Okon stopped 21 shots as Kamloops outshot Capone's.

Capone's faced the Spokane Jets in the gold medal game with Capone's jumping out to a 2-0 lead by the end of the first period and the game-winning goal was scored by Hale, off some hard work by Gorrill and Knorr, who assisted. The game saw Capone's shutdown line of Siebert, Dave Gibbons and Kurt Jacobs playing against the Jets' top line and holding them to two goals when they averaged five per game before that. Okon was again stellar in net, stopping 21 shots.

Capone's had two of the top three point-getters in the tournament - Nate Hale ranked No. 1 with 13 goals and four assists and John Johnson ranked No. 3 with five goals and seven assists in four games.