Olds' peewee female Grizzlys won gold at Hockey Alberta's peewee female B provincial championship, held in Edmonton from March 10-13.
They defeated St. Albert 2-0 in the tournament final.
"All the girls were super excited. They were asking me before the game was even over if they could throw their gloves up when they won. When they won, they were pretty excited, we got the banner and they were taking pictures with everyone," said head coach Cassidy Delainey.
"One of our parents brought airhorns for the game but the provincial (officials) wouldn't let us use them, so the girls all got their airhorns and blew them all at the same time (on the ice). So that was great."
The Grizzlys blew through the round robin, winning all four games by a combined margin of 44-2.
They also dominated the leaderboard: Maeve Van't Klooster was the top goal and point scorer with 15 and 25 respectively, Brooklyn Campbell recorded 10 assists and Rayelle Schmitt's goals-against average was 0.83.
Delainey said her team had been playing at the peewee A level for the season, winning a few games, but felt their skill level was closer to somewhere between A and B. They decided to go with the latter.
"Having the experience and the improvement of playing at A definitely helped the girls," she said. "All their skills and everything developed throughout the year so when they got to provincials, they were ready to go."
Delainey, originally from Edmonton, previously played forward for Elmira College in New York State. This was her first time coaching a full team of young girls. Watching their development has been the best part of the job.
"Every single girl got like, a hundred times better. So being able to give them drills and give them tools to improve was definitely something that was so exciting.
“There was one girl on the team that hadn't played hockey before and so she came in weaker than the other girls but throughout the year, she improved so much that I would say she was just as good as the other ones, for sure."
