One of the biggest exhibitions of minor female hockey just wrapped up its 11th incarnation.
The annual Okotoks Female Hockey Classic had 50 teams take to five rinks with a quartet of hometown teams skating to a silver medal finish on Nov. 11.
“It’s a huge tournament not just for the sake of it being a hockey tournament,” said Bantam A Oilers head coach Darcy Williams. “But it brings in a number of teams from all across Alberta and other adjoining provinces and gets all the girls together to play a game they love. Ultimately, they love the game of hockey.
The Bantam A championship went down to the wire in a finish worthy of a tournament final.
Okotoks evened the score in the final frame only to have Red Deer find the back of the net in the final minute of regulation to clinch the 2-1 victory.
“We didn’t play well the first two periods and ended up getting down by a goal,” Williams added. “The girls came out and played a really good third period, were able to tie it up, but unfortunately one went in our net in the last 30 seconds of the third.
“We were getting geared up to go to overtime and one just got by us. It was a great learning opportunity for them, their first loss of the year and it’s just going to help us get the message through that you have to show up to play every single period of every game you play. You can’t afford to take one or two periods off and expect to win.”
The Oilers did win throughout the weekend.
Okotoks was undefeated in pool play, blanking Red Deer 3-0, dispatching Regina by a 4-0 score and eking out a 2-1 result over St. Albert.
“The girls took it as a positive thing, knowing we can build on this and be a better team because of it,” Williams said. “The good thing about this is we have our first loss now, early in the year, we can now work towards it and hopefully face that team again down the road and show them this was a lucky game for them.”
Netminder Hannah Saunders and the defence played terrific all weekend.
“We knew we were going to have probably the best goaltender in the province, I would say on our team,” the coach added. “I coached her last year and I know how hard she worked in the off-season, wanting to make the highest level team possible and we’re very fortunate to have her on our team.
“I know the girls feed off her, they know she’s a wall back there for them.”
In Midget A action, the Okotoks Oilers secured a spot in the final with a flawless round-robin performance.
Okotoks blitzed Airdrie 2-0, edged Olds 2-1 and skated to a 1-1 tie with Irma. The rematch in the championship saw the north-central visitors claim the 4-2 result.
The Peewee A CAHL Oilers went undefeated in round-robin, highlighted by a 1-0 win over Edmonton, 5-4 result over Grande Prairie and 2-0 shutout of St. Albert, to advance to the tournament final.
The rematch with Edmonton went the way of the capital city squad in a 2-1 nailbiter.
In the Atom CAHL division, the Oilers also put up a flawless pool play with a 1-0 win over Airdrie, 4-1 triumph over St. Albert and 7-0 victory over Edmonton. St. Albert took the final 2-1 as Okotoks settled for silver.
Elsewhere, Okotoks Midget B finished out of the medal games with an 0-3 mark. In Bantam B, Okotoks Gold was third while Okotoks Green finished fourth in the six-team division.
In the Peewee B RMFHL, Okotoks Gold was third and Okotoks Green sixth while in Peewee A RMFHL Okotoks finished just shy of the final with a 1-1-1 record and in Atom RMFHL Okotoks posted 1-2 record.
For more information on the tournament go to okotoksfemalehockey.com.
