SUNDRE – With roughly half a dozen games to go in the lead-up to Central Alberta Hockey League playoffs, the head coach of the U15 Huskies said the team is contending with some suspensions.
“But other than that, stuff’s starting to come together and we’re kind of gearing up for playoffs,” said Corey Burwell, who took on the position late this past November when his predecessor Tim Kennedy stepped down to focus exclusively on the U13s.
Providing the Albertan with an update on how the U15 Huskies’ 2024-25 season was coming along, Burwell said during an interview on Jan. 15 that he’s seen a lot of improvement in terms of teamwork.
“They’ve really come around as a group from when I got there ’til now,” he said.
In a bid to further encourage team spirit and camaraderie off the ice, the coach said he had tasked the squad to come up some ideas to get involved in the community over the next couple of weeks.
At the time when he spoke with the Albertan, Burwell said those plans were still being worked out.
“I left it up to the captains on the team,” he said.
On the ice during practice, coaches have mainly been focused on drilling the Huskies on breakouts by teaching them to either keep an eye out to find or even just make opportunities to get the puck in the contenders’ zone.
The U15s had just recently come home from a weekend tournament hosted in Trochu, where they faced off against some stiff competition that made for “a little bit of an uphill battle as we were playing a whole tier above us,” he said, adding that while the Huskies are ranked in their age range’s tier 3 mid, they played against tier 2 teams.
They arrived on Friday, Jan. 10 and played a game that night, followed by two more games on Saturday before heading home the next day after one last match.
Although they were unable to notch out any victories from those four games, the Huskies nevertheless came away with a greater understanding of what they can expect to come up against in playoffs, he said.
“Because you end up playing those kinds of teams in the playoffs.”
Despite the defeats, the coach agreed it’s better for the squad to come up a bit short against a team that’s at a higher level than sweeping aside to easy victories against teams that don’t offer as much of an opportunity to learn and grow.
There was a total of six teams competing in Trochu with Ponoka coming out on top, he said, adding that tournament was not part of regular league play.
While they were set to resume regular league games this past Saturday night on home ice, he said their originally scheduled competition – Cochrane – had to cancel.
“We’ll have a makeup game in one of the next couple weeks.”
The Huskies were back on the road this Sunday, when they were the visitors in Hanna – which had so far this season remained undefeated in the division.
According to the Central Alberta Hockey League website, there are including the Huskies eight teams in the U15 tier 3W Silver division.
They were ranked sixth as of Monday with 11 games played, three wins, seven losses and one tie for a total of seven points.
Hanna led the pack with nine games played having maintained their undefeated streak for a total of 18 points.
Cremona, in second place, has also racked up a total of 18 points after playing 12 games, of which they’ve won eight, lost two and tied two.
Meanwhile, the Rocky Mountain Athletic Association held third place with 11 games played, seven wins, two losses, two ties for a total of 16 points.
The Huskies have so far this season also accrued the most penalties in minutes in their division with 157 minutes. The RMAA is not far behind with 134 minutes and Strathmore in third at 110 minutes.
