Considering the number of games the Olds Midget Mustangs will have to play in February, direct qualification into provincials has come as a blessing to the team.
Normally faced with at least one round of playdowns to qualify for provincials, the Mustangs earned the berth due to being the only team in zone six that qualifies at the minor AA level, meaning they'll have the time to make up their North Central Minor Hockey Association league games that have fallen victim to the recent spate of poor weather.
ìNow we can have a lot of league games and focus on those,î explained Mustangs head coach Joel Hunter. ìIt's also a lot less travel to have to worry about.î
Thanks to the December holiday break and the recent poor weather, the local midget team has played only one competitive game in 2011, a 10-4 loss Saturday to the league-leading Sylvan Lake Lakers. Now, with no worries of having to schedule zone games, they can direct their collective energy towards improving their league standing and making up those missed games.
Currently the Mustangs sit at 6-9 with five games remaining on the schedule. Four of those games will be on home ice at the Olds Sports Complex.
With league playoffs set to start in March, it essentially gives the team a chance to finish its regular season program without having to deal with the need to schedule games, which may have been the case had the team faced zone playoffs for the provincial berth.
Hunter said he doesn't believe the team misses out on preparation opportunities by not having a zone playoff.
ìWe've always wanted to go to provincials and we can start really focusing on being ready for it,î he said about the March 24-27 tournament in Peace River.
One thing the extended layoff did afford the Mustangs is a chance to get healthy. For the first time all season, all the players are available, adding to the optimism heading into the stretch run.
And while the team's record and position in the NCMHA's Midget Tier I standings isn't what they initially hoped for, Hunter believes the team has come a long way since the start of the season.
ìThere's been a good turnaround since the start of the year,î he said. ìBut it's a process.î
Among the changes Hunter hopes to see in the team down the stretch run is conceding fewer goals late in the game, a problem that has cost the team a few points in the standings this season or prevented any chance for a late comeback. On Saturday, the team surrendered four straight goals in the last 11 minutes in what had been a relatively close contest.
The Mustangs don't have a league game scheduled for this weekend, but Hunter said they're working on an exhibition game or two to help fill the gap.
ìWe're not going another weekend without playing,î he said.
Overtime ñ Riordan Oulton, Brandon Kosik, Josh Hammer and Rhett Couture scored the Mustangs' goals in Saturday's loss in Sylvan Ö Minor AA provincials are part of a provincial categorization pilot that Hockey Alberta approved in 2008. The AA Minor division is for associations that have between 58 and114 players registered in a division such as midget, bantam, etc.
