Cohesive and self-motivated. Not a bad recipe for provincial hosts.
The Scott Seaman Sports Rink in Heritage Heights will feature the top six teams in the province, including an impressive Okotoks Oilers squad fresh off its league championship, when the puck drops on the Hockey Alberta U15 Female A Provincial Championships from March 23-26.
“After the first month or two, I could see that this was a team that was going to work together and be cohesive and driven and they were going to get there,” said Okotoks head coach Petrina Clingman. “They definitely had provincials on their mind and there were definitely some coaches that this was the year to do it and this was the year to go get it.”
Okotoks, the top-team in the regular season, earned its way into the competition by taking the Rocky Mountain Female Hockey League crown last weekend.
The Oilers bested West Central in the three-game final.
“After they won the banner they were actually all themselves pretty pumped that they earned their spot and didn’t get it given to them,” the coach added. “It’s something they had in mind.”
Clingman said this year’s squad is a special group for several reasons from its cohesiveness to what she called “probably the most motivated group of people I’ve ever met.
“They’re very self-motivated, they commit to practice, they want to be there, want to learn and you hear them talking on the bench to each other,” the coach added. “They attended all of our dryland which was very high-level, it was very intense, but they wanted to be there, they enjoy that.
“The group builds on itself because I could see that they liked the challenge of those things so we did more and more.”
The Okotoks squad has players from seven different teams the year prior and a core group that has skated together year over year.
Impressively, the lion’s share of the team is first years with only five 2008-born skaters on the roster.
“We’ve talked about it among the female hockey group and the (2009-born) group is a large group, a talented group and a very dedicated group,” Clingman said. “They’re just very passionate to do well at hockey. All of their goals at the beginning of the year were things like winning banners, winning provincials, making Team Canada.”
The six-team tournament features the host Oilers, two Girls Hockey Calgary (GHC) squads, St. Albert, Edmonton and West Central.
“It’s probably going to be the best hockey that they’ve seen this year,” Clingman said. “They’re very excited, they all really want to win so I think that will drive them to work really hard.
“The two things we found throughout the whole season that made the difference between a good game and a weaker game were the effort and being first to pucks and the second is teamwork. Sometimes, it’s not selfish, but it’s excited and they get out and think, ‘I’ll go score first so we can break this open.’
“We've been focused on the minute the puck drops, you’re the first to the puck, you win the battle and you work as a team right from the beginning.”
Okotoks is in Pool A with St. Albert and the GHC Outlaws with the top two seeds out of each pool making it to the semifinal round. The Oilers’ tournament icebreaker is March 23 versus Edmonton.
The opening ceremonies are set for March 24 at 5:45 p.m. at the Scott Seaman Sports Rink.
For more information on the event, visit u15femalea.haprovincials.ca.
