It’s a new era of youthful skill and exuberance for the Okotoks Bantam AAA Oilers.
The Oilers feature 18 new players this season and an 0-3 start to the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League season has done little to dampen the enthusiasm of the young team.
“We’re excited about this group,” said head coach Mike Bara. “I’ve been out here before at 0-3 and looked in the mirror and went ‘oh boy this is going to be a long year’, not with this group, even with our 1999s.”
The Oilers boast six players — Kade Nagy, Nolan Steer, Dylan Prpich, Dakota Krebs, Brendon Borbely and Isaiah Betinol — from the Okotoks Peewee AA league championship roster last season, a team that posted a 29-2-1 record and established itself as one of Okotoks minor hockey’s most successful teams.
Bara said he’s well aware of how highly touted the 1999 group of players in the Okotoks area has been and the optimism they could bring to a Bantam AAA program which has struggled to find its way out of the Challenger South Division basement.
“I’ve been hearing about this group for a number of years, people started talking about them in Atom,” Bara said. “This is a special group and I think next year Okotoks has a chance at finally getting on that map and being a provincial contender, not just ‘hey maybe we can get to the playoffs this year.’”
As for the 2012-13 season, the Oilers are already showing the character needed for long-term success.
“We’re the youngest team in the league, but they all have high end skill, they’ve all won before and they all compete,” Bara said of his group of first-year Bantams. “Most years I have to come in and teach kids how to compete and this group already does. Now it’s just tidying up some X’s and O’s and getting some kids some minutes in the league before they can really start to contribute.”
Joining the contingent of Okotoks Peewee AA graduates are a couple of Wheatland Peewee AA Braves players, including new alternate captain Riley Romashenko a top-10 goal scorer last season.
“The Wheatland and Okotoks Peewee teams were very successful last year and even the Bantam AA teams had some success,” Bara said. “They come here they know they’re going to lose some games, it happens out here, but these guys don’t believe it’s going to happen.
“That’s the big difference, they come in here thinking ‘we can win, why not us?’”
Leading the AAA Oilers is their only remaining player from last year’s roster.
Owen Guenter was the logical choice as team captain as the only returnee, but more than that the forward is a good citizen on and off the ice, said Bara.
“Owen brings that to the table, we don’t have to worry about his work ethic off ice during dry land (training), on ice during practices, games,” Bara said. “He’s a good kid.” The Oilers’ teams of lore have featured dynamic goal-scorers and offensive catalysts in Levi Bews, Conner Bleackley and Mason McCarty. Guenter offers the team a new wrinkle as the go-to-guy.
“Those guys had the ability, and sometimes to a fault, to try and take over a game,” Bara said. “And what Owen does is he makes the kids around him so much better, he’s that calming influence and once he finds his stride he’s got a WHL calibre shot.
“The big difference is he’s not flashy, Conner had the big shot, Mason could deke around five guys, Owen is going to get rolling and it’s deception with that quick release.”
Guenter said he’s encouraged by the new faces in the dressing room, including a number of second-year Bantam players who were with Okotoks’ AA team last year.
“A couple of those other guys that were playing Bantam AA are really stepping up, helping out this year and helping to lead,” Guenter said. “I think this year we will be better, I just feel like we have more skill and more depth.”
Twelve-year-old Nolan Steer gives the Oilers a large dose of talent as the third leading scorer in the Peewee AA ranks last season with 47 goals and 68 points.
Playing up at the Bantam AAA level, Steer said the players won’t be able to rely merely on skill.
“It’s a lot faster and more physical than Peewee AA. For the first game it was a little different, but you get more used to it,” Steer said. “Last year it was pretty much skill (at the forefront) and this year it’s more about being greasy and getting goals in front of the net.”
Steer said the winning pedigree from Peewee can be applied to their new level of hockey.
“We can use our winning and what we did to win the league to help us win games in Bantam,” he said.
For more information on the team go to www.ambhl.ab.ca.
