The Bisons have hit a wins milestone during a challenging push to the break.
The Carstar Okotoks Bisons (20-2-0) extended their undefeated run on home ice with a pair of convincing triumphs over the Mountainview Colts and Ponoka Stampeders to become the first team in the Heritage Junior Hockey League to hit the 20-win mark this season.
“We don’t even talk about it that much, we just try to win hockey games,” said Bisons head coach Brad Cobb on the record at home. “At the end of the day, we’ve got a mindset of just be good every game and be good every shift and if you end up winning, you end up winning.
“We don’t really look at the home ice record, to be honest with you, but it’s nice to see.”
On Friday, Okotoks rode a second period push to a 4-1 win over the Colts.
After the teams exchanged first period goals though Okotoks’ Easton Dean and Mountainview’s Haiden Parks, the Bisons scored three in the final 10 minutes of the middle stanza.
Daniel Tainton won a puck battle in front of goal and tapped in his fifth tally, Kaleb Brown potted his second and Ethan MacIntyre got his stick on a clapper from the point for a wicked deflection in front of goal to close the scoring.
“The first 20 were definitely slow, but we picked it up in the second and from there coasted through,” said MacIntyre. “We were just taking the puck to the net, in the first we weren’t doing it as much as we could and, in the second, we were just pilling on the shots.”
Outshooting, outchancing and largely outplaying its opposition while playing a close game on the scoreboard has been a feature of Okotoks’ game in recent seasons.
And they’re getting pretty good at it.
“I feel like we’re getting better at it,” MacIntyre said. “It’s definitely hard coming in and feeling like we should be doing better and just not capitalizing on the shots. We just need to start burying more, we’re just in a drought.
“We’ve had a lot of close games this year, four overtime wins so we do feel comfortable in those (close game) situations.”
Grady Nicholas made 20 saves for his 15th win of the season while Colts netminder Jordan McGinnis turned aside 49 of 53 shots.
“We’re trying to keep everybody active and manage the bench even though it takes us 50 shots to get three or four goals, as you can see all year long and same as last year,” Cobb said. “We try to take pride in managing the minutes and tonight we got them spread out more so you’re a little more rested for (Saturday).”
Okotoks closed the weekend by knocking off the Stampeders 16-2 in a lopsided contest. Fifteen skaters got on the scoresheet, led by Jakob Semeniuk's hat-trick along with Adam Kirkpatrick's two goals and seven points performance.
Cobb has been impressed with how the team responded to just its second loss of the season, the previous weekend in Coaldale, which was followed up by a strong 3-1 victory in Strathmore and a good week of practice.
“It’s a really good sign to see that we got back on the horse and we didn’t dwell on it too much,” Cobb said. “It is tough when you go stretches of 13, 14 games in a row where you don’t lose and sometimes it feels like the end of the world when that loss comes up, especially when teams are gunning for you like they do.
“I was really happy with the response the next day.”
Okotoks closes the pre-holiday slate on the road with stops in Cochrane and Coaldale on Dec. 15 and 16.
The next home date is Jan. 5 versus Strathmore.
“It’s managing their work life, they’re balancing it out with school and they can see the finish line before the Christmas break,” Cobb said. “You also see the schedule after the Christmas break and how intense it is playing all of the South teams.
“It’s just trying to get through and mentally keeping them focused and I’ve noticed that has been more difficult the last couple of weeks to keep it going.”
For more information, visit okotoksbisons.com.
