NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
The South Alberta Hockey Academy U18 men's team celebrates their second straight Circle K Classic championship win after beating the Calgary Buffaloes 6-0 on Sunday in Calgary.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
When South Alberta Hockey Academy won the 2022 Mac’s Championship – now the Circle K Classic – last April, it came as a shock to those in attendance.
But when they captured back-to-back titles Sunday in front of a sold out Max Bell Centre to become the first team in 20 years to achieve the feat, there was no surprise.
SAHA beat the Calgary Buffaloes 6-0 at the 44th annual Circle K Classic, which came seven months after they won the last Mac’s Championship, becoming the first repeat champions since Shattuck St. Mary’s won the 1999, 2000 and 2001 tournaments.
Head coach Brayden Desjardins says he couldn’t be more proud of how hard his team played and is excited they could get rewarded for their hard work while putting their mark on the 32-team tournament.
“There was some talk about this tournament being the real one, because it was a little bit of a reboot, makeshift tournament in April,” Desjardins said. “For us to put our stamp on being the last Mac’s champions and the first Circle K champs, that’s very special for our school team to do so. I’m pretty excited for them.”
SAHA made history last April becoming the first hockey academy to win the international tournament, which rebranded from Mac’s to Circle K in between.
Kade Duell, Noah Dziver, Sammy Hynes, Josiah Jackson, Nate Corbet and Brett Calhoon all scored for SAHA in the win while Zach Zahara turned aside all 23 shots he faced.
There were five returning SAHA players from their first championship team on this year’s roster, captain Elias Eisenbarth, forwards Brayden Sumner and Hynes, and defenceman Grady Hauk and Zahara.
Zahara played a large role in the first tournament win and was an even bigger part of their repeat efforts. The 17-year-old netminder started five of the six games SAHA played, winning all five with three shutouts, a 0.974 save percentage and a 0.60 goals against average.
The Medicine Hat Tigers prospect was named playoff MVP. He says this has been their goal from the start of the year and is happy to share it with his teammates.
“Our motto for the whole first half the season was to be the last Mac’s champions and the first Circle K champs, so to put those words into actions is huge,” Zahara said. “Not many players will have this environment in their life. It was a sold out crowd, my first time playing in front of a sold out crowd and what an experience.”
While Zahara led things from the back end, the talk of the tournament was 15-year-old Gavin McKenna, who had six goals and eight assists throughout the tournament to take home the MVP honours and most sportsmanlike.
He described the tournament win as an unbelievable feeling.
“We’ve worked the first half of the year to win this tournament and we had everybody on board and every single game we had good goaltending, good defence to a good offence,” McKenna said. “We just played with heart and listened to our coaches, they were great.”
Duell led the tournament in scoring with six goals and seven assists for 13 points. He and McKenna were tabbed first team all-stars with Zahara getting second team honours. Desjardins was named the tournament’s top coach but credits his staff of Gavin Broadhead and Torrin White for the success, pointing to their work on their special teams as one of the main reasons SAHA came out on top. SAHA’s penalty kill did not allow a goal all tournament and their power play converted at 54.5 per cent in the round robin, and 100 per cent in the final.
“The way these guys have played six games out of six, that’s just consistency, I’m pretty sure a farm chicken could coach this team,” Desjardins joked. “It’s unbelievable what they can do but if you really get down to it, our special teams were unreal and that’s a true testament to Torrin and Gavin. That’s a big couple power play goals today, the kill didn’t give up one the entire tournament, that’s because of my assistants, not me.”
Desjardins also credits his team’s depth for staying in every game as injuries piled up, such as Eisenbarth going from forward to defence after losing Nathan Hawkins and Hauk to injury early in the tournament.
Eisenbarth credits the group around him for buying in and becoming a family.
“This is probably the tightest group I’ve ever been a part of,” Eisenbarth said. “It’s an honour to be a captain of these guys, because honestly we don’t even need letters on this team. We have so many guys who could be captain, who could have As and we’re just a family. That’s the biggest part of it.”
Eisenbarth is one of eight SAHA players who are 17 or older and running out of games at the U18 level.
Dziver is another and he joined the Dunmore-based academy ahead of this season looking to find a place to play next year while helping them win the Circle K Classic. Having done both, the Winnipeg product says he’s beyond proud of his team.
“Some guys who don’t get as much ice, they didn’t shy away from this game, they all brought their best game, put it all out on the floor,” Dziver said. “Guys battled injuries, guys came back off injuries just to play in this game and I’m super proud of these guys.”
Medicine Hat Tigers head coach and general manager Willie Desjardins, a senior advisor with SAHA, was in attendance Sunday. He says it was good getting a chance to watch his son Brayden have that success and to see how strong he has built the program.
“He’s done a great job with that program and he has, it hasn’t been me. It’s all him, and those guys played hard,” Willie said. “Their on-ice stuff, I like how they celebrate each other’s success. One guy will get player of the game, and all the guys go around and celebrate it. They leave the dressing room, everything’s picked up when they leave. There’s certain ways to manage it and I like how he manages that team and what he does and it shows in how the players play.”
Brayden says it was nice having his dad in the stands when it’s always usually been the other way around.
“I’ve sat through some pretty tense games for him, so it’s nice we got ahead and we went through it but for him to come and make the trip is pretty special to me – I really appreciate him doing that,” Brayden said.
The 2023 Circle K Classic championship banner will hang beside the 2022 Mac’s championship banner in the Big Marble Go Centre, SAHA’s home rink. Eisenbarth says it will be sweet to see the two beside each other to forever remember this team’s run.
“It’s a lifelong memory is what it is,” Eisenbarth said. “I’ll never, ever forget this in my life. For the guys that won twice they’ll never forget it, and for the guys who won it for the first time, they’ll never forget it either.”
