NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
The South Alberta Hockey Academy poses with their championship jerseys and medals after winning the Mac's International U18AAA tournament on Apr. 10.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The South Alberta Hockey Academy was a surprise to a lot of teams when they won the 43rd Mac’s Invitational Tournament in April. Now, newly rebranded to the Circle K Classic, the only surprise SAHA is looking to make is by going back-to-back.
“Last year we were a late entrant, I don’t think we were supposed to be there necessarily and we kind of caught a few teams off guard; this year, we’re going through the front door,” said SAHA head coach Brayden Desjardins.
SAHA beat the Vancouver NE Chiefs 4-2 in the rebooted tournament held in April and is one of 32 teams competing in the international U18AAA tournament. Desjardins says they are embracing having a target on their back.
“We’re an extremely deep team with a lot of firepower, so it’s going to be exciting for the guys to play in an environment like that,” Desjardins said. “Not a lot of guys have got to experience a tournament of this magnitude, so to get in there and get going, it will be exciting.”
The Calgary-based tournament gets underway Dec. 27 and wraps up with the finals on Jan. 1. SAHA has five players remaining from the championship team in April: forwards Brayden Sumner, Sammy Hynes, captain Elias Eisenbarth, defenceman Grady Hauk and goaltender Zach Zahara.
Hauk says it’s one of those tournaments that every player wants to be part of and he is excited for those experiencing it for the first time.
“With all those teams, it’s one of those tournaments where everybody’s ready to win,” Hauk said. “They’re all bringing their A-game, it’s all of the best teams in Canada and you just have to bring your A-game and hope it all goes well.”
Zahara was between the pipes in the championship game and made 15 saves for the tournament win. He says all of the other teams can expect a lot out of them as they look to defend the title.
“It’s the most fun tournament I’ve ever played and our team believed in ourselves so much last year and we’re going to have that same mentality this year,” Zahara said. “Just believing in ourselves and trusting the process and hopefully we’ll bring home the championship.”
With the rebranding to the Circle K Classic, Desjardins says it’s special to be considered the last true Mac’s Champion and says that team will forever mean a lot to the academy.
“We take a lot of pride in what we did last year, those guys worked incredibly hard to achieve that and it’s something that’s not easily done to play and win five games in five days is incredibly challenging,” Desjardins said. “They did an unbelievable job of finding ways to be successful and that team is always going to be special here to us and to the staff. If you can be the last of anything, you like it quite a bit.”
SAHA’s leading scorer and Medicine Hat Tigers prospect Gavin McKenna took part in the April tournament while playing for RHA Kelowna, losing in the ‘C’ finals against the Greater Vancouver Canadians. He says he’s looking forward to playing for SAHA at the tournament and experiencing it for a second time.
“Coming off of SAHA’s win last year there’s going to be a bit of a target on our back but I think we’ll do good with that,” McKenna said. “Our team has a really good chance of winning it, obviously we are in a good pool so we have to come to every game ready, but I think it’ll be good.”
SAHA opens the tournament with a 7:15 p.m. contest against the Saskatoon Blazers. They’ll face the Calgary Northstars on Dec. 28 and wrap up the round robin on Dec. 29 against the St. Louis Blues. The Classic’s playoff format is set up that the top team from each pool moves on to the A division. Desjardins says special teams played a large part in the win last tournament and will be relied upon once again.
“It’s so important to have good special teams, our penalty kill only gave up one until the finals, we were unbelievable on our special teams,” Desjardins said. “It’s nice to have some familiarity with Gavin (Broadhead) still running the penalty kill and Torrin (White) running the power play, those are huge for us.
“Obviously just knowing the ebbs and flows of the tournament, there’s going to be some ups and downs, it’s not always going to go the way we want it to. It’s about just staying calm, cool and compact, kind of the way we have been the whole year. If we do that, I think we’ll have a very good showing.”
