Leadership comes in many forms.
After the graduation of 2011 captains Wade Taylor and John DeVries, who moved into coaching, a new group of leaders has filled in admirably for the Okotoks Ice, even if they might bring a different style of leadership than their predecessors.
Logan Northcott, a transition player for Junior B Tier II Ice, has taken on a new role as one of three alternate captains in, this, his fourth season with the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League (RMLL) club.
“We’re actually quite a bit younger this year because we had a lot of guys graduate and a few guys went to Tier I so we don’t have quite the experience that we did, but have a lot of talent,” Northcott said. “Our captains are not as vocal as they have been in the past years so it’s been a lot of leading by doing.
“We’re trying to help the other guys get up to speed on the speed of the game from what they’re used to.”
Northcott and veterans Travis Somnor and Eric Antonchuk are serving as Okotoks’ alternate captains, a first for the trio at the Junior B level.
Antonchuk said the 2012 version of the Ice has a real element of youth, but with a 4-1 record through five games the youth movement is off to a flying start.
“We lost a lot of veterans last year so we’ve just had different players stepping up,” he said. “It’s been a lot different.”
The Ice own the RMLL’s best goal differential at + 32 at the early juncture of the season, a fact Antonchuk attributes to the structure of the team.
“It’s almost half-zone, half man-to-man and no other team in the league uses it,” he said of the team’s defensive strategies. “It works well against teams in this league.”
Antonchuk has propelled the team’s exploits at the other end of the floor with a team-high eight goals and 19 points while riding shotgun on a line with older brother Mike Antonchuk, Northcott and Ty Johnson. Antonchuk said Somnor and Josh MacMillan have also been integral components for Okotoks.
Taylor Monkman and Mitchell Fawcett have split the goaltending duties for the Ice. It doesn’t seem to matter who’s been in net, as the duo has combined to allow a league-low 30 goals through five games.
“They’re both new to Tier II so they’ve been trying to get up to speed, but have been coming along very quickly,” Northcott said of the goalies. “Graham Copland came back to be our goalie coach this year so he’s been helping them out a lot.”
Northcott said sharpening the Ice’s transition game has been a point of emphasis all season for head coach Ian MacDonald.
“That’s where we were lacking skill,” he said. “It wasn’t in the offensive zone with scoring goals, it was in the middle where we were getting beat so we put in different plays to stop that from happening and we do a lot of conditioning before practices.”
The Ice welcomes the third-place Medicine Hat Sun Devils to Okotoks Centennial Arena, June 2 at 6:30 p.m. for their first meeting since Medicine Hat eliminated Okotoks from the second round of the playoffs last year.
“We wanted to win the league because we’ve lost in the finals the last two years to Medicine Hat,” Antonchuk said of Okotoks’ goals in 2012.
“Last year was tough because (we lost) in overtime so we really want to beat them this year.”
Okotoks finishes its two-game home stand with a June 3 tilt against the Calgary Rockies set for a 3 p.m. faceoff. For full schedules and results go to the RMLL homepage at www.rockymountainlax.com.
