Stephens Equipment Grey-Bruce Highlanders Bantams played in the Toronto Marlboro Holiday Classic Tournament, starting on Dec 27th at the Canlan York University Arena against the Buffalo Regals. 

Although the game started off evenly matched, the Regals eventually took advantage and took the lead at 3-1.

The Stephens Equipment crew’s next game was against the Vaughn Kings, currently ranked 3^rd in Ontario.  The Highlanders got the first goal at 05:18 - scored by Spencer Elder (Owen Sound) with the assist coming from Grayden McArthur (Chatsworth).  That goal seemed to wake up the Kings and they went on a scoring spree, scoring three goals before the end of the period – at 3:30, 1:20 and 0:16 - to assume a healthy 3-1 lead.  The Vaughn Kings kept up the attack, scoring two short-handed goals at 11:44 and 10:52 of the second period to widen the lead to 5-1 and then two more before the end of the period at 2:01 and 1:02.  The third period was quiet from the Vaughn side and at 3:50 Garrett McFadden fired a shot into the net for the 7-2 final score.  Elder got the assist on the play.

The next day the Highlanders played the Nickel City Sons but were not going to get the win as the Nickel City Sons’ #11 scored his hat-trick goal at 6:35 to tie the game at 3-3.  Tyler Fassl (North-Bruce Peninsula) played a solid game in net for the Highlanders.

The Stephens Equipment team  fourth game of the tournament was against the Waterloo Wolves.  By this time however, it was apparent the team was not going to be advancing any further in the tournament, but Waterloo wanted to win this bad and were expected to be tough.  For the fourth time in the tournament, the Highlanders opened the scoring at 1:10 of the first period, with Ethan Skinner (Kincardine) beating the Wolves goalie, assisted by Anderson and Elder. 

The second period remained a closely played match, but the Wolves took advantage of a power play to score at 11:57 to even the score up at 1-1.  At 7:18 the Wolves moved ahead 2-1 and then at 5:51 of the third widened the lead to 3-1 for the win.  Nick Redman (Collingwood) played a good game, coming up with a couple of big saves in a fairly evenly matched game.