Female Storm bring home the banner

Times Reporter

 

The Peewee Storm female hockey team played in their final games of playoffs over this past week. This year was the first time the Peewee girls have won the banner for the Rocky Mountain Female Hockey League. 

“It’s great to see the start of a new female generation of hockey players on such a good start,” said Fern Pagenkopf, female director for Strathmore Minor Hockey, SMH. 

The girls lost game one 3-1 to Innisfail, and won the second game 3-1, forcing a final game between the two teams.  

“We ended up beating them 5-4 in overtime in a shoot-out…to win the banner,” said Mike Corbiell, Coach of the Storm team.

“Tarri Jessey got the winning shoot out goal and Breanna Schumann, our goalie, stoned them in the shoot out. It was so exciting,” said Crystal Stevens.

Five of the 15 skaters were Atom level players and, for another three of them it was their first year playing hockey.  

“There was a lot of learning they did all year long, and they were a real committed bunch of girls that just kind of stuck with it,” said Corbiell.

“Even when we were down 4-2 in the final game they kept with it and finally tied it up to force overtime.”

This was Corbiell’s first year teaching the girls team, though he has been a hockey coach for a few years. Corbiell said the girls taught him a lot this year, and said other than no body checking in Peewee female, there wasn’t much difference between coaching boys versus girls. 

“They’re a real good bunch of kids. The girls are real intent on listening and learning, so a lot of fun to coach from that perspective,” said Corbiell. 

“These girls really kind of gelled together, they really seemed to get the whole team. We did a lot of team building activities throughout the year.”

At the beginning of the year, they didn’t have a goalie because the two full time goalies had moved up to play Bantam. 

Corbiell canvassed the girls to see who would play goal, and nobody was sure they wanted to. He said one girl finally stepped up.

“We got a goalie coach out and worked with her and she just turned out to be terrific and was a real credit for the team. She ended up getting, out of eight games in playoffs, she had three shutouts, so that’s pretty amazing,” said Corbiell. 

Sunday’s game marked the end of the season for the girls, though there will be a windup party and skate with the parents.