Kings recall successful season

Mario Prusina

Times Editor

 

When the Wheatland Kings joined the Heritage B Junior League three seasons ago, they had a three-year plan to become contenders for the annual playoffs.

After their first round playoff series – and despite losing it three games to none, the team is right on it’s schedule for future success.

“We kind of tend to get hard on ourselves when we focus on the smaller piece of (the puzzle),” said Kings head coach Doug Murphy. “When you look at it, this is the team’s third year in existence and going into it, we knew it was going to take three years to develop a competitive team. As frustrated as we may get with the results, I think we’re probably right on track or much further along than we (expected).

“When we talk to coaches and general managers of the better teams in the league, that’s sort of the sentiment we get from them is ‘wow, you guys have brought this team so far so fast.’ “

Consider it so far, so good for the squad.

Following their solid regular season, in which they clinched the final playoff spot with a 14-20-1 record, the Kings gave the first-place Okotoks Bisons all they could handle in two of the three games played.

Besides a Game 2 blowout, in which the Kings missed two of their premier scoring threats en route to a 6-1 loss, the remaining games were decided by one goal, including Game 1’s overtime loss. In fact, Game 2 might have been a different story altogether if it was played in Strathmore like it was supposed to – as opposed to Okotoks – because of the faulty ice maker here a couple of weeks ago. 

“Not that we’re making excuses, but if we were back home Wednesday night, it would have been a very different story,” said Murphy. “But when you drag it out to Friday and go back to their barn, which is always difficult to play in, (it’s tough). We got down two games … and they definitely picked their game up.”

However, when it was all said and done, the Kings had no regrets with the season.

“I think almost every player thought they played as well as they could,” said Murphy. “They left it all on the ice.”