OLDS — The Olds Grizzlys U13AA hockey team won bronze in the U13AA provincials, which they hosted March 30-April 2 at the Sportsplex.
The Lethbridge Hurricanes won the tournament, downing the Calgary Stamps 5-0 in the final.
The Grizzlys edged the St. Albert Stars 6-5 in the bronze medal game.
Jason Jaffray, one of the Grizzlys’ assistant coaches, said all the Grizzlys players were disappointed not to be playing for gold in the final, but they’ve nothing to hang their heads about.
"We finished up provincials and ended up winning the bronze medal, so third best team in Alberta,” he said during an interview with the Albertan. He described that as "a pretty cool experience” for the team.
Jaffray noted the team included two girls, who were “two of our best defencemen.”
“They were phenomenal all weekend,” he said.
The Hurricanes, who the Grizzlys beat to win the league title, went 5-0 in the provincials.
“They got their revenge on us,” Jaffray said. “They beat us 4-0 in the round robin and earned their way and didn’t lose a game all weekend, so they did very well.”
“They’re a really good team,” he added. “In the league finals we beat them 4-3 in overtime in Game 1 and then we beat them 8-2 in Olds to win the league (championship).
“They beat us 4-0 in the round robin game. They’ve got two of the best goalies in the league. They had three shutouts in their five games.
“They had a great weekend, kudos to them. They were one of the best in our league all year too. We got the best of them in the league finals and they got the best of us in the provincials.”
The Grizzlys had a rocky record in the tournament.
The Stars beat them 5-4 in the first game on Thursday, but then they came back and hammered the Leduc Roughnecks 7-1 on Friday, then were shut out 4-0 by the Hurricanes.
That propelled the Grizzlys into a must-win game against the Calgary Stamps in order to get into the final. But they lost 4-2 with an empty-netter.
So the Grizzlys played the Saints in the bronze medal game and that was a nail-biter.
“We beat them 6-5 in the bronze medal game with a very exciting finish – a disallowed goal with a minute-and-a-half left,” Jaffray said.
“We were up 6-4. They scored one goal late and then had the disallowed goal and it was a very exciting game for the boys and girls.”
Jaffray said the Grizzlys played well throughout the tournament – just came up short.
“I mean, we played the four best teams in Alberta and three of the games were one-goal games,” he said.
"It wasn’t that we did anything wrong, we just played the other best teams in Alberta and we came up a goal short versus Calgary, a goal short in the first game versus St. Albert. We spanked Leduc.
“We had a great weekend. All the boys and girls were upset when we didn’t make the gold medal final, but that’s what you want. You want to play in competitive games, you want to play the best teams in Alberta.
“It isn’t that we lacked offence or we gave up too many goals. I thought our goalies were great. Our top guys ended up (being) our top guys at the end of the tournament.
“It was just an overall well-played weekend by all the teams and it was just fun to be a part of.”
