The herd have rumbled to the top of the South for a fourth straight season.
The Carstar Okotoks Bisons’ 4-1 triumph Friday night at the Murray Arena over the Coaldale Copperheads clinched first place in the Heritage Junior Hockey League’s South Division for a fourth consecutive campaign.
“That was one of the goals coming in to get that first round bye and home ice advantage in the playoffs,” said Bisons head coach Brad Cobb. “But more importantly for us is just how we play.
“We break it down week by week in how we’re performing and the fellas did a really good job tonight through 60 minutes.”
Okotoks (30-3-0), two-time defending league champions with three straight seasons with the best record in the HJHL, have a 12-point lead on the second place Medicine Hat Cubs.
The Cubs have six games remaining, but the Bisons own the edge in the first tiebreaker of head-to-head matchups.
“It’s nothing new to us, just head down grinding all season,” said Bisons forward Scott Brown. “It will be nice to have the bye and play the weaker team in the (next) round, that’s always important.”
On Friday, Okotoks improved to a perfect 16-0 on home ice with a commanding 4-1 result with 59 shots on goal in the victory.
Brown led the attack with two goals with blueliners Caden Scott and Kegan Law also lighting the lamp.
“That was one of our best games all year,” Brown added. “We were just getting pucks deep, using our speed and winning puck battles.”
At the other end of the ice, Logan Maroni made 14 saves on 15 shots to pick up the victory in his first start with Okotoks.
“He’s had a good couple weeks of practice and we wanted to give Grady (Nicholas) a break, he had been playing lots of hockey,” Cobb said. “I had this one circled the last time we beat Coaldale because we had won the season series against them.
“I looked at it as a positive where our team needed to play better and if they saw a young guy in there, they would play hard for him and they did and he did a solid job for us.”
The 17-year-old netminder joined the Bisons in early January after practising with the team for parts of the campaign.
“It was exciting, you get to see the boys buzzing for a full 60 minutes and working hard,” Maroni said. “I was confident, excited, ready to go in and give my best and see where it goes.
“I wish I got more shots, any goalie would want that rather than standing around, but a win is a win and I will take what I can get.”
Earlier in the week, Okotoks dispatched Medicine Hat 7-4 on a rare Tuesday night tilt as a makeup date for a previously postponed match.
Captain Lucas Watkins paced the offence from the back-end with two goals and an assist with Ethan MacIntyre, Jakob Semeniuk, Jady Shigehiro, Easton Dean and Law adding the other markers.
Okotoks is back on home ice Saturday night versus the fourth-placed Cochrane Generals.
Puck-drop is 8:30 p.m. at the Murray Arena.
Next weekend, Okotoks is in Medicine Hat on Feb. 9 and returns home for a marquee matchup with the North-Division top-seed Sylvan Lake Wranglers on Feb. 10 at 8:30 p.m.
The Bisons and Wranglers matchup will likely dictate which team finishes first overall in the HJHL standings and clinches home ice advantage throughout the postseason.
For more information, go to okotoksbisons.com.
