The Okotoks Midget AA Oilers are bringing home a nice keepsake from a quick jaunt to Slave Lake.
The Oilers won the provincial gold medal in the Minor AA division with a 4-1 victory over the Barrhead Steelers, March 18 in Slave Lake.
“I think what it came down to was our effort and we were capitalizing on our chances,” said Oilers forward Jeff Harvey. “One of the most important things we did was our sacrifice. We laid everything on the ice and left it all out there.”
Oilers centre Connor Tudor said Okotoks’ superiority in the final resulted from their heart.
“We realized this was our last kind of hurrah so we really came together as a team and everyone was going at 110 per cent,” Tudor said. “It was a good game and we finished strong.”
Harvey scored the opening goal in the provincial final. Connor Tudor, Darren Bordt and Zak Johns added tallies in the final 40 minutes. Barrhead’s Nolan Schmidt was the lone Steeler to get a puck by Oilers’ netminder Richard Palmer who made 31 saves in the pressure-filled final.
The gold medal game was expected to be a highly competitive affair after the team’s skated to a 3-3 tie in round-robin play earlier in the tournament. Oilers head coach Cliff Bordt said both teams got off to a nervous start before his 1994 born players, in their last game of eligibility at the Midget level, started to carry the mail for Okotoks.
“It was a little slow at first, but we kept banging the net to get into the ugly spots led by Zak (Johns) and the 94’s,” Bordt said. “They truly stepped up this weekend. All those guys played so good and it was such a great way for them to end their minor hockey careers.”
Tudor said the captain was instrumental in the buildup to the final.
“Zak Johns was a key leader as our captain and he spoke out in the dressing room and gave us a rude awakening and had quite a bit to say and gave us a boost going into the final game realizing we needed to give it our all that it wasn’t just some other game, that it was a big deal,” Tudor said.
Okotoks didn’t have an easy route through to the finals as they were matched up with the host Slave Lake Thunder in a seesaw semifinal. In talking to the Slave Lake coaching staff, Bordt said the host team was playing for more than the jersey they were wearing.
“I think they just came out with a lot of emotion,” Bordt said. “They wanted to succeed so much with the loss of half their town with the fires and everything.
“They had some good passion to come out and perform for the people that had given so much back to them to rebuild.”
Harvey sent the Oilers to the final with the 4-3 game-winning goal against Slave Lake, eight minutes into overtime.
“I hopped on the ice and Dylan Wilson came around the net and set it straight up through the middle and luckily I picked it up on my stick and fired it five hole,” Harvey said of his overtime heroics. “It was an insane, surreal moment. After I scored the whole team just came charging at me and we celebrated the win.”
Harvey said his final time lacing up the skates for a minor hockey tilt represented was unparalleled.
“It’s probably the best hockey experience I’ve ever had in my life,” said Harvey, a student at Strathcona Tweedsmuir School. “Winning just capped off the unbelievable experience on the weekend.”
Okotoks went undefeated in Slave Lake tying and beating Barrhead and Slave Lake as well as a round robin 5-2 victory over the Camrose Vikings and a 9-0 thrashing of the Grande Prairie Storm.
The provincial gold came just seven days after Okotoks was eliminated from the South Central Alberta Hockey League playoffs in a shocking overtime loss to the upstart Lethbridge Hounds. Harvey said the Oilers were eager to atone for the loss.
“That was a bit of our revenge,” Harvey said. “We wanted to leave the other teams with the feeling we had a week ago when we lost to Lethbridge in overtime. We didn’t want that to happen to us again.”
Bordt said their upset loss in the SCAHL may have been a blessing in disguise for the Oilers’ prospects at the provincials.
“After we got there and felt the whole atmosphere of the provincials they stepped up and played and I think (the playoff upset) might have been a good motivator for us to keep going.”
