It’s hard to say goodbye to the herd.
Two members of the Okotoks Carsrtar Bisons’ championship team from 2021-22 have returned to the squad with forwards Andrew Bonham and Boogie Blackwater making their season debuts in the Heritage Junior Hockey League team’s 4-3 triumph over the High River Flyers on Nov. 25 at the Murray Arena.
“It’s really good, not just from a dressing room point of view, but they won a championship last year for us,” said Bisons head coach Brad Cobb. “It’s always good to have guys that have gone through it a little bit and have won it so some of the younger guys can lean on more veteran leadership.
“It’s nice to see them back. We’ll get them back into game shape and go from there.”
For both returners, fitting hockey into a busy schedule went from a potential hurdle to something that could be overcome.
“I started the year off at school and thought that was going to be the main thing that drove my life right now,” said Blackwater. “But I came to every home game since the start of the season and I loved starting to come back so I thought might as well try a practice and that turned into a game and probably the year.”
After getting back into the swing of things at practice, Blackwater said the next logical step was to lace up the skates once again for game action.
“It’s the boys, the ice is in my veins,” he said of the draw of coming back. “I’ve been playing it since I was three and it’s a habit now. It felt weird not playing it so that was a big pushing to getting back.”
Blackwater, a 2002-born skater, is coming back to the lineup as a forward after providing a towering presence on Okotoks’ back end last season.
“He’s just a really good athlete, a smart hockey player so it doesn’t really matter what position he plays,” the coach added. “He has that dynamic up front as a big body with really good hands.
“It also helps that if we ever have defencemen go down during a hockey game he can always swing back and play defence. It’s nice to have that kind of rover type of hockey player.”
Bonham, an alternate captain on last year’s squad, was also feeling the pull of wearing Bisons colours.
“It was a lot of sitting around and seeing the boys at practice and feeling a little bit of FOMO,” said Bonham. “It’s nice to come back and be a part of something again.
“Even with my job and school I still had a little bit of extra time so I thought I might as well put it to good use and do something I enjoy doing.”
For Bonham, a 2001-born centre, it’s the competitiveness and camaraderie in the dressing room that are tough to replace when away from the team.
“It’s times like this with the boys,” he said. “After a big win where everyone is tired and being able to hang out a little bit.”
The 21-year-old said there’s a learning curve joining a team midway through the season, a team he said has a lot of reminders of the 2021-22 version of the Bisons.
“Lots of the boys have been around the same systems for three months now and it’s like you’re stepping into that,” Bonham said. “You do remember stuff from last year, but everything does get tweaked to adjust to each line.
“It’s just getting that step back that you missed from the first three months of the year.”
Weekend sweep
Okotoks improved to 4-0 versus High River with the Nov. 26 win.
Flyers netminder Kaiden Fulton put in a herculean effort in goal with 55 saves on 59 shots with the opportunistic visitors scoring three times on 17 shots.
Blackwater scored in his debut with goals also coming from Daniel Tainton, Avery Greig and Braedon LeGrandeur for the Bisons.
“That was a good hockey game,” Cobb said. “(Fulton) made some saves and did a really good job down there. We got into a little bit of penalty trouble in the second period and that probably took a little bit of momentum away when we had that 4-1 lead at the time.
“They battled through it and it was nice to see us win a tight hockey game, because that’s how it’s going to be in the playoffs and provincials.”
On Sunday, the Bisons scored a 4-3 shootout victory on the road over the Northern Division leading Sylvan Lake Wranglers.
Captain Lucas Watkins scored the only goal through four rounds of shooters to lift the Bisons (19-1-0) to their fifth straight victory.
Jaevon Buschlen, Brayden Kapty and Simon Smith-Burness scored in regulation for the visitors.
This week, Okotoks is home to a pair of Southern Division foes with the Coaldale Copperheads and Medicine Hat Cubs visiting Murray Arena on Dec. 2 and 3, respectively. Both games are 8 p.m. starts.
For more information, visit okotoksbisons.com.
