The Okotoks Oilers used their final dress rehearsal at home before the regular season to make significant inroads on their new team identity.
Okotoks skated out a roster with more than 20 rookies at their first Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL) pre-season tournament on Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 at the Pason Centennial Arena, where the South Division team finished with a 1-2 record.
“The players are competitive and it’s a results business,” said Oilers head coach James Poole. “But really at this stage with having such a young group it’s really the process that’s more important.”
The Oilers lost 5-3 to the Fort McMurray Oil Barons on Aug. 30, but were the dominant team for much of the game. They followed the result with a convincing 4-2 win over the Camrose Kodiaks on Aug. 31 and closed the tournament with a 6-3 loss to the defending AJHL champion Brooks Bandits on Sept. 1.
“We’re really happy with the process in terms of Thursday and Friday,” Poole said. “The identity we are trying to establish as a team was there in terms of hard work and being a more disciplined hockey team.”
The consistency of hard work throughout the lineup is the key to the Oilers this season, Poole explained.
“We don’t want to have 75 per cent of our guys working hard,” Poole said. “Really, this team, I don’t think (we’re) superstars in terms of guys that are going to lead the league so we want to have that workmanlike mentality.”
The hosts strayed from their game plan in the third and final game of the tournament.
“It was definitely a step back against Brooks,” he added. “We knew we were in for a stiff test against Brooks and I think that was pretty much their opening night roster.”
The Oilers coach said the team might have been in awe of the Bandits.
“Going in we kind of had that feeling, the room was pretty quiet,” Poole, said. “They were second guessing themselves when they got the puck.”
Playing the provincial champion Bandits, who dressed just one rookie during the tournament finale, was a challenging prospect for a rookie-laden Oilers lineup featuring just seven veterans.
“I think we let them off the hook a little bit, we gave them too much respect,” said Oiler Robbie Fisher. “In the third, the last 15 minutes, that was our game we just couldn’t score.”
Fisher, who scored in both games he played during the tournament, said the results are not the be all and end all at this stage of the season.
“You always want to get the win, but if we keep getting better and better right now then we’re going to be laughing by the time the regular season comes,” Fisher said. “And we haven’t played a game with our full roster yet either.”
The gritty left-winger said the team is collectively buying in to the hard-working identity they’re looking to establish.
“We’re a lot closer than what we were at this time last year, we’re playing for each other and we’re playing for the right reasons right now,” Fisher said. “Our room is really good right now, we’ve got a lot of good leaders.
“Last year at this time we were divided and it showed by our start.”
Okotoks struggled out of the gate with a 14-17-3 mark in the 2010-11 season before making wholesale changes to the roster in November and December.
The Oilers close their exhibition schedule versus the Bandits tonight, Sept. 5, at the Centennial Regional Arena in Brooks.
Okotoks then has nine days to prepare for its home and regular season opener, Sept. 14 at the Pason Centennial Arena against the Spruce Grove Saints, a traditional North Division powerhouse.
The Whitecourt Wolverines, in their inaugural season in the AJHL after re-locating from St. Albert, are in town the following night for their first ever meeting with the Oilers. Both games are 7 p.m. starts.
For more information go to the Oilers new website at www.okotoksoilers.ca
Rookies shining
The head coach of the Okotoks Oilers is going to have some difficult decisions to make in the next week.
Poole said there were a number of rookies who helped their stock during the exhibition games.
“Some of our defensemen, Drew Welch and Stefan Danielson, definitely showed they’re ready to play Junior A,” Poole said. “John Edwardh had some moments where he definitely showed some poise.”
A couple of under-the-radar prospects have also exceeded expectations in Okotoks.
“Tanner Ockey and Logan O’Connor are a couple young kids that coming in to this they probably expected to be back in Midget AAA,” Poole said. “But they’ve definitely made us think twice because of their work ethic.”
As of the weekend, the Oilers were carrying 32 players, a number Poole expects to reduce to closer to 25 come the start of the season.
