It’s been a two-month battle, but the Okotoks Bisons find themselves on top of the Heritage Junior Hockey League standings for the first time this season.
The Bisons swept their three-game weekend set to overtake the idle Coaldale Copperheads for first place in the Heritage Junior Hockey League (HJHL) South Division and in doing so extended their unbeaten streak to 14 games.
“We had a slow start (this year) and we definitely took advantage of our condensed schedule with three games this weekend and it looks good in the standings when you’re number one overall,” said Bisons general manager Jay McFarlane. “We want home-ice advantage, we want to finish first in the South and we said that at the beginning.”
Okotoks capped off the perfect weekend on the ice with a 7-1 thrashing of the Stettler Lightning on Sunday at Murray Arena.
The Bisons shared the love on offence as Kevan Mikkelsen, Zak Johns, Zac Baba, Chase Fallis, Phil Dillon and Brodie Eisbrenner each registered two point performances. First-year Bisons goalie Alex Bilton stopped 30 pucks to earn his seventh win of the season.
The victory gave the Bisons (14-2-1) a five-point cushion on the Copperheads (11-2-2), however, the latter holds two games in hand.
“We’ve put ourselves in a position where we are (tops) now we just have to keep it,” McFarlane said. “And Coaldale is not going away, they’re going to be there all the way through and we know that.”
Okotoks is doing everything it can to build a gap on its chief rivals for the South crown as the Bisons have not lost a game since their first meeting of the season with Coaldale on Sept. 28.
Bisons forward Jeremy Smith, fifth in league scoring with 12 goals and 30 points, attributed the 14-game unbeaten run to familiarity and cohesion in the forward group.
“I think we’ve got all the lines figured out now and the forward depth is good, we’re just confident now like we were last year,” said Smith. “It feels really good, everyone is getting along, we have three scoring lines and now we have those two pick-ups for that fourth line (Liam McMaster and Joel van der Velden) so everything is going well right now.”
The Bisons ran away with the regular season title last season and have finished with the best record in the South division for the past three years. However, the Bisons’ uncharacteristic slow start combined with the scorching hot play of the Coaldale Copperheads had the two-time defending league champions looking up at their divisional foe all season.
“Every year we feel like we’ve put everything we’ve got into it,” said third-year Bison blueliner Matt Howatt. “It looked easy these last two seasons, but yeah (taking first) it’s rewarding I’d say.”
Earlier in the weekend, the Bisons edged the Blackfalds Wranglers 6-4 on Friday at Murray Arena in the first meeting of the perennial HJHL title contenders since the Bisons sipped from the league championship trophy on home ice in March.
Linemates Smith and Fallis paced the hosts with two goals and three points each and Bilton was unflappable between the pipes stopping 33 of 34 shots.
Okotoks followed up the effort with an 8-3 whitewash of the Cochrane Generals on the road on Saturday. The Bisons turned a 2-1 lead in the third period into a six-goal performance in the final frame to put the game firmly out of the Generals’ reach. Smith and Dillon led the way with one goal and three-point performances and Kevan Mikkelsen chipped in with three helpers from the backend.
Tyler Hughes made 29 saves to pick up his seventh win of the season.
The Bisons take their show on the road this weekend when they visit the arch-rival Strathmore Wheatland Kings on Saturday followed by the Ponoka Stampeders on Sunday.
For full schedules and results go to www.okotoksbisons.com.
Net gains for rookie
First-year Okotoks Bison Jordan Eddy was honoured as the league’s rookie of the month for October. The 20-year-old forward tallied seven goals, including two-game winning markers, and nine points in just seven games during the month. Eddy, who has been held out of action for the last two weeks due to work commitments, is expected to return to the Bisons’ lineup this coming weekend.
The Calgary native has tallied 12 goals and 18 points since joining the team in September from the Alberta Junior Hockey League’s Calgary Canucks.
