It has been a good year for the Steelers, says head coach Alan Measures.
“I’ve have a really great group of kids to be able to coach this year and the parents have been really supportive,” Measures said, noting in his opinion, that is important to the players at the Midget level.
“They are a lot of fun to coach. They’ve worked really hard all year and I’m happy with them. I don’t know what everyone else’s expectations of the team was this season but mine has always been to win. That’s the only reason that we do any of this and as long as the boys are keeping score, they’re there to win. They’re a hungry group of kids,” he added.
The Barrhead Steelers faced off against their Vegreville Wranglers counterparts for the first game of a best of three series for the league’s gold medal March 15 and won 4-0.
The first period started off slow, with neither team managing to score or capitalize on breakaways until Landon Petiot broke the ice and scored on a rebound from teammate Brendan Bujold, with one minute left on the clock.
However, Vegreville Wrangler Eric Powley served two minutes for roughing and the Steelers were unable to capitalize on the powerplay.
With the score 1-0 for Barrhead, the Steelers came out of the flood in the second period with their head’s more fully in the game and Steelers player Jeremy Devries scored his first goal of the game unassisted, eight minutes in.
The score was now 2-0.
Three minutes later, on a penalty against Bujold for boarding, Vegreville waffled on an opportunity to score during a penalty shot.
The Steelers came back in the third period like a pack of hungry wolves.
Bujold led the fray, scoring in the first 15 seconds of the frame, on an assist from teammates Luke Syzbunka and Jona Cisse and five minutes later, Devries followed it up with his second unassisted goal of the game, bringing the total to 4-0.
“The first period wasn’t very good but after that, we played a lot better,” Measures said, noting Steelers goaltender Ty Steinbring had a top-notch performance.
“In the third period, we shut them [Vegreville] right down. I felt like maybe we were nervous or something in the first, but I don’t know really. We’ve had some of our best games of the season against [Vegreville] and I know they aren’t a team that’s likely to give up easily. Whether we win or lose the league games or provincials, the boys should be proud of themselves. They had a really good year.”
