SUNDRE - The Sundre bantam Huskies brought home their division’s banner after a hard-fought final series against a team they had not once defeated during the regular season.
“We’re the league champions,” said coach Jason Martyn.
The third and final, best-of-three series in the Central Alberta Hockey League’s bantam tier 4 division against West Country — which includes players from Caroline and Spruce View — got off to a rough start, with the Huskies getting shut out 3-0 on Friday, Feb. 28 in Game 1 in Dickson, said Martyn.
Undeterred, the Huskies showed heart and bounced right back from the brink of defeat on Saturday, Feb. 29 with the home ice advantage during Game 2, winning 5-3 and forcing the final into its third game, he said.
On the road once again, they nevertheless won decisively, sweeping aside West Country with a dominating 9-1 win on Sunday, March 1.
“The boys came out hard. They meant business,” said the coach.
“They never slowed down the whole game.”
The Huskies, he added, also demonstrated “phenomenal discipline” during that final game, when emotions started running a little hot on West Country’s bench with tempers flaring up.
“Our kids stuck through it, and didn’t get drawn out or baited into any penalties,” he said.
Leading up to the final, the Huskies had previously taken out Drumheller 8-1 and 4-3 in two straight games during the first round of playoffs, bringing them up against Clive in the semifinal series, which played out in three games. Losing their first game 5-3 on the road on Friday, Feb. 21, the Huskies managed to stay in the series when they turned the tables to win 5-3 on home ice the following day. The third game played in Clive came down to the wire, he said.
“That was a real nail-biter. We were down two goals after the first period.”
But following the break between the first and second periods, the Huskies pulled their game together. The bantams came out strong and “really poured it on them,” only allowing Clive to take nine shots on goal for the last two periods. They went on to win 4-3, he said.
Those victories paved the way forward for the finals against West Country last weekend.
Discipline has been a major factor for the Huskies, whose players are, compared with other teams, fairly sizeable, he said.
“A lot of our kids are quite a bit bigger than other kids in the league,” he said, adding they’ve had to make a concerted effort to control their play, especially with regards to checking.
“They’ve been diverse in what they’ve had to do,” he said, calling the Huskies, “one of the most coachable teams I’ve had in a long time.”
Six players are moving up to the midgets next year, with 10 who will remain on the bantam roster, setting up next season with a solid core, he said.
The season has been exceptional, he said, with the Huskies finishing the regular season, not including tournament play, with a record of 12 wins, three losses, and one tie. The team had a roughly 14-game winning streak coming into playoffs.
“We were in third place by just half a point.”
Clive was ranked second, with West Country in first. The Huskies had previously tied West Country, including a match that ended at 0-0 — which the coach in his minor hockey experience had never seen — but had not yet won, he said.
Over the past weekend, the bantams played another best-of-three series for the zone championship against Oyen, handily defeating the competition two games in a row to take the title. The Huskies played the first game in Sundre on Friday, winning 6-2, he said.
“We outshout them 74-11,” he added.
On Saturday, the bantams went to Oyen, and won with a final score of 5-1 after again outshooting them, this time 60-11, he said.
“It wasn’t close at all,” he said.
Oyen had won the southern division and will also be competing in the upcoming provincials that the Huskies will be hosting starting next week, with opening ceremonies set for Thursday, March 19.
“We’ll see them again,” he said.
“If we weren’t hosting provincials, we would have to win the zone championship (to qualify),” he said.
Although the team hosting provincials automatically gets a bye to play, the coach said the Huskies “wanted to prove we belong there.”
Plans for the big event have been coming along well, with plenty of community support stepping up behind the Sundre Minor Hockey Association, he said.
“Our overall goal is to win provincials on home ice.”
