And then there was one.
The South Central Alberta Hockey League regular season has concluded with the Taber peewee “AA” Golden Suns the only program out of the three to have qualified for the playoffs.
Taber peewee “AA” Golden Suns start its playoff run today with a home game against Lethbridge Eagles at 6:45 p.m. at the Taber arena.
The bantam “AA” Golden Suns (9-22-2) and the midget “AA” Golden Suns (5-23-7) were left on the outside looking in for the south division playoff picture by not qualifying.
The team will look to be a bit of a wildcard in this year’s playoffs as a team has taken a huge metamorphosis from the beginning of the SCAHL regular season.
“The kids have come a long way. Our style of hockey is a little more gritty now where we are finally playing with the contact,” said Duane Nevil, head coach of the Taber peewee “AA” Golden Suns.
“And I finally got one line passing this past game. I sat enough kids that they figured it out. There was a lot of individual ‘me, me, stuff’ but we’ve now got into the passing and the line work and the teamwork and the goals just started coming.”
Nevil really started seeing his team play a playoff style of hockey back at its Regina tournament. While the team lost each game by one goal according to Nevil, the intangibles were there as far as the head coach was concerned.
“They were good quality hockey games against good teams. I came out of that looking at the whole picture that the kids were starting to play that tougher hockey. The kids didn’t see it because they lost, but all the things started coming into play,” said Nevil.
The team will be looking to get healthy as Gavin Hoskins is attempting to return from a broken wrist with Tanner Turcato (ankle) and Hunter Johnson (groin) not at 100 per cent. Plus, the flu bug has ravished the team as of late.
“We’ve had the flu bug for the last 10 days. I played 12 kids this past weekend,” said Nevil.
The team’s have split decisions with the Eagles taking a one-goal victory to start the year with the Suns returning the favour a couple of weeks ago with a 6-2 victory.
After today’s 6:45 p.m. tilt at home, the Taber peewee “AA” Golden Suns travel to Lethbridge on Saturday for a 2:30 p.m. game at Henderson ice arena. If necessary, game three will be back home at the Taber arena at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday for the best-of-three series.
“We haven’t played them for a few weeks, but we’ve change dour style of play. Our system work has changed trying to throw something fresh in there with our breakouts and our power play. The kids are starting to get it with heads up hockey instead of heads down hockey. Another thing is goaltending, we’ve had good goaltending lately and it’s made a huge difference,” said Nevil. “That’s the best time of the year for that to happen. When you get grittier at the end, it always helps.”