ATHBASCA – The U13 Athabasca Hawks’ hopes of playing for a Tier 3 provincial title came to a tough end in a dramatic 6-5 OT loss to the High Prairie Red Wings
At the eight-team Tier 3 Alberta Provincial Championship March 23-26 in Lac La Biche, the Hawks finished first in their round robin pool, with a 13-3 win over Lac La Biche March 23, followed by a 5-1 victory over an Edmonton club on March 24, and a 4-4 tie versus Rimbey March 25, which set the stage for the March 26 semifinal.
In their semifinal versus the Wings, the Hawks came out on fire and were sitting on a 5-1 lead at 14:29 of the second period before the tide start to turn. High Prairie rattled off one goal at the end of the second, and three more in the third to force the game into overtime, before one last goal from the Red Wings’ “hotshot” ended their season. High Prairie ended up losing to the Irvine Bulldogs 7-6
“They had a hotshot player that we tried to hold off for as long as we could, and he ended up scoring four goals,” said coach Cam Cummings in an interview March 27.
Looking back on the year Cummings is proud of his bunch, noting that all but three of his players will be moving on to the U15 level this fall. Playing in the Northern Alberta Interlock U13 Tier 3 Division, the Hawks went 9-4-6 in the regular season, qualifying for playoffs as the fourth seed. They won road games against Fox Creek and Pembina, before their 3-2 victory against Calahoo punched their ticket to the provincial championship and snagged them a banner to hang in the arena back home.
Cummings referenced the playoff finals when he talked about “the will to win”, which had been a focus for the coaching staff this season. “It takes a certain will, you’ve got to want to win, and the kids learned that. They never gave up, they get against these good teams, like Calahoo where they were down two goals, and they won it 3-2. That’s a team that probably should have beat us, but the kids believed in themselves.”
