Although they came up short in their quest to bring home two gold medals this season, Westlock’s Peewee ‘A’ Warriors are happy to hang two silver medals around their necks.
The team, coached by Shane Boulerice, wrapped up its season on March 24 in Three Hills, dropping the Peewee ‘B’ Provincial final 7-5 to the Grimshaw Flyers.
“The boys battled through every bit of it and they played the best they could,” Boulerice said in the minutes following the final buzzer.
It was the second time the Warriors had lost to Grimshaw at the tournament, having dropped a 10-2 decision in both teams’ final round robin game. An overtime win over the host Kneehill squad granted the Warriors a second chance to get even with the Flyers.
Heading into that final tilt, Boulerice told the kids to expect an emotional 60 minutes.
“At the beginning of the game, I told them it’s going to feel like you’re at Universal Studios and you’re riding the Hulk roller coaster,” he said. “There’s some ups and downs, and then there’s going to be a couple loops and it’s going to go by real quick.”
In their first match up, the Warriors trailed Grimshaw 7-0 after the first period. In the final, they scored first and were down only 2-1 after 20 minutes.
Asked what the team did different from the first game, Boulerice said they learned from their mistakes.
“The boys skated more and they played their positions better,” he said.
They also worked hard to shut down two Grimshaw players who had contributed the bulk of their team’s offense. “We took a couple of players and told them to make sure when (Grimshaw’s top scorers) were out there, that somebody is watching those guys and staying on them a little better,” Boulerice said.
It seemed to be working, as the score was 4-3 Grimshaw heading into the final period.
“I told the boys we’ve just got to keep doing what we’ve got to do and hopefully we can score the next goal,” Boulerice recounted saying during the second intermission.
Grimshaw struck first in the third.
With the score 6-4 in the final two minutes, Boulerice pulled his goalie for an extra attacker. The tactic worked and the Warriors scored with 1:09 remaining to make it 6-5.
Unfortunately, with the net still empty and the Warriors pressing, the Flyers shot the puck down the ice into the open cage, sealing the Warriors’ fate.
Before heading down to Three Hills, the Warriors had to wrap up their league play by going up against Strathcona for the 1660 League Tier 2A championship.
In the end, the Warriors dropped the best-of-three series in two, falling 5-4 at home on March 16 and 4-1 on the road on March 17.
Despite the loss, Boulerice said it was a good end to the season.
“They did the things they had to do and most nights we had 100 per cent effort from all the kids,” he said.
Boulerice recounted how he had told the boys around Christmas that he felt they could be a .500 team and compete with any other team in the league.
He apparently knew what he was talking about because as the Warriors finished the regular season 8-8-4 and then went on a run in the playoffs, knocking off Gibbons and Beaumont before running into Strathcona.
“We thought maybe third or fourth in the league would be a good finish,” he said.
But ending up with silver?
“That was really well done by the boys.”
This season, he had a team that was fairly evenly split between first- and second-year peewees, a situation that bodes well for the 2013-2014 season.
“We’ve got a good core of peewees for next year,” he said. “We should have a fairly good team again next year with the team we have.”
