It feels like the very first time for the Okotoks Jr. B Bisons.
The Bisons defeated the Sherwood Park Knights 8-4 Sunday in Wainwright to capture the franchise’s first provincial banner in 12 trips to the Alberta championships.
“It’s pretty indescribable,” said an elated Bison defenceman Michael Savage, one of nine Okotokians on the roster. “Knowing that going into it no one has ever done it before. We knew we had a group at the beginning of the year that was able to do it.
“We’ve been preparing for this since we lost last year; we didn’t want to taste that defeat again. We knew what we were coming here to do.”
The agony of defeat can be a powerful motivator in sports.
Not wanting to repeat last year’s 5-1 loss in the provincial gold medal game against Whitecourt in Okotoks, the Bisons built an early 3-0 lead on a physically dominant Knights team.
Eddie Tracy opened the scoring just 3:29 into the contest when the smooth-skating defenceman was given space to lift a wrist shot from the point past Sherwood Park’s Brett Lewis.
Spencer Samuel doubled the lead with his quick shot during four-on-four play at the midway mark of the opening stanza.
Just over a minute later Phil Dillon scored his first of three goals in the contest, converting on a two-on-one with Jeremy Smith.
Following a Sherwood Park timeout, the Knights tilted the ice in their favour for the second half of the period and were finally rewarded when Derek Hutton’s rebound shot slid past goalie Alex Bilton on the powerplay.
The Bisons got back on the front-foot in the middle frame when Dillon converted a rebound from a Kevan Mikkelsen point shot. On the next shift, Bisons player of the game Ty Fehr made it a four-goal lead when the Calgary native went to the net hard and found the rebound for a tap-in.
Undaunted by the inflating deficit, the Knights pushed back again on the man-advantage. Justen Konski cut the lead to 5-2 on a five-on-three for Sherwood Park, followed by Hutton’s second tally of the game just 1:19 later.
The Knights had the Bisons on their heels for the remainder of the period and carried considerable momentum into the final stanza.
Dillon put a stop to the comeback 27 seconds into the third period.
The rangy forward threw a devastating hit on the forecheck shorthanded, before feeding Fehr and then pouncing on the rebound to complete the hat-trick.
“Normally I wouldn’t have hit him, but he just ran into me and I got the puck and panicked knowing we were shorthanded and Ty was right there, he made a great shot and I just tapped it in,” Dillon said of the crucial goal. “All three goals were basically empty netters.”
Bisons captain Chase Fallis buried a juicy rebound to make it 7-3 before Sherwood Park’s Michael Tasse and Okotoks’ Jeremy Smith exchanged tallies in the waning moments of the comfortable 8-4 victory.
“We were determined to get the lead, we did that and then I don’t think we knew what to do,” said Bisons head coach Mike Hannigan. “We’ve never had the lead in a gold medal game so it was an adjustment in our mindset and as soon as we got our bearings back we were okay.”
Savage, who was playing through a fractured 12th vertebrae suffered in the league playoffs, said he knew in the back of his mind Okotoks was destined for gold.
“Before we got to the rink last year we were worrisome. I remember having a bad gut feeling and last night I fell asleep and I had confidence from the very first drop of the puck,” he said. “I may have come back too early (from the injury) but it was worth it.”
It wasn’t smooth sailing out of the gate in Wainwright as Okotoks tied its tournament opener 2-2 with the host Bisons.
“That was the toughest start we’ve ever had at provincials,” Hannigan said. “The players were down, devastated. We should have won that game and if we lost Friday we were out.”
Facing a must-win situation in round-robin play with Sherwood Park Okotoks pulled off a 6-2 win, behind a four-point performance from Dillon and backstopped by 32 saves from Bilton.
The Bisons then blitzed the Calgary Rangers 7-1 in their round-robin finale to advance to a semifinal tilt with their Heritage Junior Hockey League rival Red Deer.
Okotoks would again have the better of Vipers, handing Red Deer a 7-2 romp on the strength of a hat trick from invaluable blueliner Matt Howatt.
The Bisons’ first provincial title books the club a ticket to St. Malo, Manitoba for the Keystone Cup, the Western Canadian championships, which run from April 18-21.
“It’s a completely different tournament,” Hannigan said. “It’s not a round-robin, it’s like the Memorial Cup where the top two teams get the gold medal game.
“It will be interesting for the whole organization because (St. Malo) is a long way to go to lose so you want to win that one.”
For more information on the Bisons go to okotoksbisons.com
