Green meant gold for the hometown Oilers at the Okotoks Female Hockey Classic.
Okotoks Green capped a dominant weekend with an 8-1 victory over Fort Saskatchewan to capture gold in the U18 B division at the 15th annual Okotoks Female Hockey Classic, held Nov. 11-13 at five rinks in the community.
“We had a good showing,” said Okotoks Green U18 B head coach Robin Mitchell. “We have a great group of girls and they worked hard. We’re only six weeks in so it was nice to have a tournament where we could have some success.
“It’s a springboard for our season, hopefully.”
Just coming through the tiering round with the regular season set to launch, the Classic couldn’t have come at a better time for teams looking to gather momentum.
“We’ve got a great team,” said Okotoks Green blueliner Ava Holmes-Binns. “Everybody is able to cooperate and pitch in and we’re really bonding together as a team. Especially with this tournament, playing together game after game, it’s really hard work and I think it brought us together as a team to push each other to our best.”
Mission accomplished.
Okotoks went a perfect 4-0 in the competition, outscoring its opposition by a 25-2 margin.
“Our communication was key,” said Okotoks Green’s Kiera Dowell. “As a team, we focused on our breakouts and talking to each other, making sure that every game we kept improving and working on what we did the last game and kept getting better to move forward as a team.”
In pool play, Okotoks Green earned a 5-0 win over Edmonton, 7-0 triumph over Cochrane and saw Fort Saskatchewan in the round-robin finale, skating to a 5-1 result.
“We played as a team, moved the puck around really well, the defence quarterbacked the team from the back end, calmed us all down and set us up for a lot of good plays,” Mitchell said. “And we really put the puck in the back of the net a few times, we got them early and it gave us some momentum for the rest of the games.
“And we never played from behind, which was great.”
In the rematch with Fort Saskatchewan with the gold medal on the line, Okotoks took its first meeting lessons to heart.
“Going into this game, we learned to keep our heads up a little bit more,” Dowell said. “And we knew they had a few fast skaters, we knew the numbers and to keep an eye out for them.
“To try and do what we did last night and show this is our rink and our home and we deserve to be here.”
In the final, Okotoks scored four in the first, one in the second and in the final frame got goals from Jorja Inglis on a power move, Chelsea Stewart on a rebound and Isabelle Ait on a wicked wrist on a shorthanded break to see out the result.
Netminder Kylie Chant, a first-year at the U18 level, was a force all weekend for Okotoks with two shutouts in four games, allowing just two goals against in the competition.
“She’s a great competitor down there,” Mitchell said. “She didn’t see a lot of shots, those that she saw, she stopped. And it felt confident having her back there.”
For the head coach, the tournament is a chance for the players to make memories, some of whom won’t get a chance to skate in the Classic again due to ageing out.
“On a U18 team you have three years so we’ve got a couple girls on this team who are 14 and some girls who will be turning 18 and it’s their last year,” the coach added. “It’s really about spending time in a positive environment and if you get some success out of it that just makes it that much better.
“I’m really happy for them, hopefully they get more memories, but that’s one good one for the year so far.”
Dowell, who said she’s played in the tournament for a number of years, called it a good time for everyone involved.
“It used to be called the friendship tournament and it’s always a good way to bond together as a team and have a good time,” Dowell said. “Just the atmosphere, seeing all of the girls, all of the young girls play hockey and young people coming up, it’s really inspiring to see especially with not that many girls in hockey.”
Okotoks had four teams qualify for gold medal finals in the Classic, a 48-team competition in 10 divisions.
In U18 B, Okotoks Gold had a strong weekend with two victories over St. Albert an Edmonton and just missed out on the gold medal game due to its loss to Fort Saskatchewan.
In the U18 A division, the Okotoks Oilers also struck gold for the second straight year at the Classic.
Okotoks edged the previously undefeated Calgary 2-1 in the gold medal game Sunday at Scott Seaman Sports Rink.
The Oilers entered the playoff game on the strength of a 2-1 record in pool play, featuring an opening 1-0 loss to Calgary, 3-0 shutout of Saskatoon and 4-2 triumph over St. Albert.
Okotoks earned silver in U15 A after a nailbiting 2-1 loss to Calgary in the final at the Murray Arena, on the heels of a 2-1 record in pool play.
The hometown Oilers also dug up silver in the U15 B division.
Okotoks Gold was edged out 6-3 by Leduc in the gold medal game on Sunday, following a strong round-robin featuring wins over Leduc, Fort Saskatchewan and Fort Saskatchewan.
Okotoks Green just missed out on the first-place match, posting wins over Prairie Thunder and Elk Valley and earning a 2-1 record.
The hometown Rocky Mountain Raiders finished 1-2 in U13 AA, Okotoks was also 1-2 in the U13 B and U11 A divisions. In U11 B, Okotoks Gold tallied a 1-2 record while Okotoks Green registered two ties and a loss.
Okotoks also had two teams in the U9 division, the Dynamite and Thunder.
For more information go to omhatournaments.com.
