NEWS PHOTO SEAN ROONEY Tavin Stadnicki poses with the captain's C on his new Medicine Hat Cubs jersey Monday, July 22, 2019 at HomeStay Inn and Suites.
Edit: The original version of this story incorrectly spelled Tavin Stadnicki’s name.srooney@medicinehatnews.com@MHNRooney
Last year the Medicine Hat Cubs had a new attitude.
This fall they’re adding new duds.
The junior B hockey team unveiled orange and black jerseys Monday to accompany their recently redone logo, along with the announcement of Tavin Stadnicki as the team captain.
“It’s a big honour,” said Stadnicki, who takes the C from graduated overager Quinten Karg. “I’m pretty excited to step in to his shoes, see what we can do this year.
“I think we’re going to build off where we left last year.”
Much of the talk at the press conference held at HomeStay Inn and Suites centred around a team looking to take the next step after pushing rival Coaldale to overtime in a seventh game of playoffs this past spring. The Cubs hadn’t won a playoff round since 2013 before a first-round sweep of Strathmore, so now the challenge is to do better in the regular season, earn some more home dates in the post-season and get back to being a contender in the Heritage Junior Hockey League.
“I was going to go to school (in Lethbridge) but a couple hockey decisions had to happen,” said Carson Dingwall, who played a few games with the Cubs up from midget AA where his team won a provincial title. “I thought I’d have to play a couple more years; looking at this organization, seeing where it’s going I’m pretty excited.”
The team will hold a season ticket drive Aug. 24, with training camp set for Sept. 6-8. With Karg the only one aging out, competition for spots will be fierce this time around.
After barely having enough players to ice a team a few years ago, that’s a problem head coach JD Gaetan is happy to have.
“It’s going to be a hard team to crack, anybody coming in, which is good,” said Gaetan. “We don’t want anything easy, we’ve been there, done that.”
