Taber atom Oil Kings are making its way to atom ‘A’ provincials in Lacombe starting on Friday thanks to a deep and experienced team that proved too strong for its opposition initially.
“We were a Tier II team that got pushed up to Tier I because we were too strong for Tier II. At Tier I I’d say we played about .600 hockey throughout the season. We also went to a tournament in Moose Jaw where we won the tournament, and were zero goals against,” said Kyle James, head coach of the atom ‘A’ Oil Kings who are comprised of six first years and 11 second-year players.
The Oil Kings dispatched Lethbridge and Okotoks to make it to atom ‘A’ provincials in which the Oil Kings have a bit of a book on some of the opposition.
“Our expectations are we have a really good chance being one of the stronger teams there I’ve anticipated,” said James.
One of the big roadblocks at provincials for the Oil Kings will be Olds who are in the same pool as Taber in which the Oil Kings were 0-3 during league play against them.
“The Olds team is a primarily second-year aged team. Their strong core is their defence. They are very defensively sound, they don’t score a bunch, but it’s hard to score on them,” said James. “They are pure power defensively. We’re basically going to have to flip that puck in deep and drive the net, compete hard and win the battles along the boards to have success against them,” said James.
James added the atom Oil Kings are three lines deep in which it will be hard for the opposition to key on any one line to shut down.
“Our team is very deep and goaltending has been solid all year long. We can play three lines hard and just run them,” said James.
“It seems to be how our season has went. We’ll have to play each game one by one and focus on every period. Our strategy and our  game is puck in deep and forecheck hard. We’ll have to stay out of the penalty box and play, play, play.”
Taber atom ‘A’ Oil Kings are comprised of Carson Cleland, Dallas Cummins, Carter Deboer, Colby Garner, Trey Halvorson, Carson Haynes, Kolby James, Jayce Jensen, Ty Kiss, Tristan Miller, Jack Murphy, Max Nevil, Brayden Peters,  Cody Stange, Brady Silver,  Blake Van Beers and Josh Verloop. Coaches are Kyle James, Albert Deboer, and Cam Cleland.
“This group has worked hard all year and they’ve had to step it up and they know what they are responsible for,” said James. “Every kid knows what their responsibility is for every shift and they have a good work ethic.”