PHOTO COURTESY CSSHL TWITTER
The Edge U18 Hockey academy poses after capturing the U18 championship on Sunday. Medicine Hat Tigers prospect Hayden Harsanyi (holding right corner of banner) scored in the championship game.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Two Medicine Hat Tigers prospects finished their Canadian Sport School Hockey League seasons on a high note.
Forward Hayden Harsanyi won U18 gold with Edge and goaltender Jordan Switzer finished in first place at the U17 level with Northern Alberta Xtreme.
Edge beat Rink Kelowna Hockey Academy 3-1 on Sunday to win their sixth championship in the past 14 years, which includes two seasons cancelled by COVID-19.
Harsanyi says their team success came from sticking together as a group and remaining positive throughout the playoffs.
“It’s an awesome feeling because there’s a lot of good teams,” Harsanyi said. “We worked really hard this year, had ups and downs. Last year I think I had the team to win too in bantam and we didn’t quite do it. But it’s a great feeling and we accomplished what our goal was and how hard we worked for it.”
Harsanyi had three goals and nine points in five playoff games, including a goal and an assist in the gold-medal game. He had multiple lessons learned from the week-long sprint of a playoffs the CSSHL offers.
“You have to come ready to play every night, every team’s good,” Harsanyi said. “No matter what, your body has to be rested, everything’s got to be ready to go and you want to be at your best at all times.
“It’s about working your hardest. I believe I got a lot better as the season went along, just off hard work and being dedicated to the game.”
He finished his season at Edge with 19 goals and 41 points in 33 regular season games played. Harsanyi will likely make the full-time jump from the U18 level to the WHL next season, something the Calgary product is already looking forward to.
“I just have to keep working hard,” Harsanyi said. ‘There’s a lot of minor hockey and hopefully I get an opportunity to play next year, but I just have to work hard this offseason.”
Just like Edge finished their regular season in first place and came away with the league title, Switzer and the U17 NAX were also first in both regular season standings and the league finals.
Switzer says going into the playoffs with a target on their back only fed him and the team’s motivation even more to win.
“We had some of the guys from last year, when we lost in the semifinals, we had quite a team,” Switzer said. “Our second-year guys kind of felt the heartbreak and took it upon ourselves as leaders to guide the first-year guys through how the CSSHL playoffs work. Because it’s one elimination game and you can be out versus the AEHL where they have series. We got it done, including our season and it was really fun being with those group of guys.”
He won all 15 of his regular season starts with NAX, with four shutouts, a goals against average of 1.59 and a save percentage of .942.
Switzer won all three of his starts in the playoffs, allowing only five goals with a 1.66 goals against average and a .934 save percentage. It’s an effort the Edmonton product is proud of.
“It was really cool because last year, we still had those high-end guys who would have overshadowed a bit,” Switzer said. “It was really cool to kind of have that experience and have a leadership role to help my team win.”
Tigers’ unsigned draft picks Nolan Dupont (Edge) and Cohen Carter (NAX) were also part of the championship teams.
Harsanyi and Switzer’s postseason success adds to the Tigers’ 2007 draft class victories, with the eight prospects on SAHA coming off the Circle K Classic. Medicine Hat associate coach Joe Frazer says that early experience is important for prospects.
“Anytime you can win a championship you can draw back on those experiences later in life, and just super excited for both those two guys,” Frazer said. “They both had really good seasons and to cap it off with a championship that’s the experience they can bring to us when they become Tigers and we can lean on that in the future.”
