Enjoying the ride

By Sean Rooney on March 17, 2018.

srooney@medicinehatnews.com @MHNRooney

The coaching staff of the Medicine Hat Hounds’ unbeaten peewee AA team has a pretty straightforward job these days, though nobody would necessarily qualify it as easy.

“It’s a full-time job to keep them on the ground,” said head coach James King. “We just go shift-by-shift, we break it down into mini-games. Five-minute games, we just win one and move on to the next five-minute game.”

On Friday the Hounds won 11 of 12 such mini-games, beating the Central Alberta Selects 6-1 in Game 1 of a South Central Alberta Hockey League best-of-three championship series. They can wrap up the series and a spot at provincials with a win Saturday in Lacombe, or a win back home Sunday.

It would be fair to say few people expect a Game 3 considering Medicine Hat’s record this season.

After a 38-0-2 regular season, they went 6-0 at the South Conference tournament last weekend.

For any age group, keeping a level head with that much success would be tough.

“They’re just kids, some of them don’t know how to handle it,” said King. “Even today it’s just another hockey game. It’s a bunch of kids throwing sticks on and let’s go.

“It is a lot of fun. It’s a good bunch of kids.”

Captain Shane Smith had two goals and an assist, Elias Eisenbarth had a goal and two helpers while Braxton Thornton had a goal and an assist and Dawson Seitz the other goal for Medicine Hat Friday. Beck Boiteau made 27 saves, his shutout bid ending with a breakaway goal by Chase Walker with 2:55 left on the clock.

Medicine Hat used to have two peewee AA teams but consolidated into one the past few years. It’s expected there will again be two next year, meaning this crew could be the last for a while to play with all of the city’s top peewee age-level talent.

“You know, it’s kind of the perfect storm: skill development, speed, just simple, basic things,” said King. “You put all that together, then a little bit of effort and strong goaltending, strong D, it’s the perfect storm.”

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