SAHA female squad itching to play

By RYAN MCCRACKEN on November 5, 2020.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken

The waiting game continues for South Alberta Hockey Academy’s U18 female prep squad.

After getting in a pair of games against Oyen’s U15 boys squad last month, SAHA entered into what they hoped would only be a mandatory 14-day break from competition. But scheduling conflicts and a lack of opponents in the province have kept the new Canadian Sport School Hockey League squad at bay until Nov. 22 at the earliest, though they’re still trying to lock down an official schedule for their first official series of the season against Edmonton’s Northern Alberta Xtreme.

“We’ve been getting our practice time in, that’s for sure,” said SAHA U18 female prep head coach Evan Vossen. “It’s looking like what’s going to end up happening, barring any more setbacks, is that between Nov. 22-29 – so that seven-eight-day window -we’ll probably play four games against NAX. Then Dec. 13-20 will be another seven-eight-day window where we’ll try and play four games against (Calgary’s) Edge.”

Teams across the province have been dealing with the 14-day non-competition period that comes with changing 50-person cohorts – or in the case of hockey teams, changing opponents. Given that it’s already been 18 days since SAHA closed out an exhibition series with 7-2 and 4-3 victories in Oyen, and they’re facing at least 17 more days before dropping the puck again, Vossen says the focus is on keeping players engaged in practice while adding some in-house competition into the mix whenever possible.

“The 14-day break we’ll have after we play NAX, and before we play Edge, is different because we’ll obviously have two weeks where we can look at some video and those sorts of things, work on specifics that we need to just touch up on after playing some games. But right now, it’s tough,” said Vossen. “Yes, we played a couple games in Oyen, but we haven’t played any of our competition. So, trying to make sure our habits are still real good, we’re working hard, and then trying to incorporate some game play among ourselves as best we can on a weekly basis, it kind of just becomes that challenge. Then, the overlying part of it all is making sure we’re still having good energy and having fun while being at the rink every day.”

The schedule has been shuffled around on SAHA’s female team a few times now, and there’s no doubt it’s made the prolonged practice period a challenge, however Vossen says his players are taking it in stride.

“I think it’ll be good once we can actually confirm some dates so that they know this is happening,” said Vossen. “It’s been twice now this has happened, where we kind of give them, ‘Hey, this is what it looks like,’ then we’ve had to reschedule or change it around. They’ve been very patient with it, but I know they’re eager to get playing.”

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