True Warriors shine at provincials

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The Wheatland Warriors battled it out to the very end with a shortened bench to go 4-0 in the round robin, before exhaustion kicked in and they were defeated by the Beaumont Braves 4-3 in the semifinals at provincials in Taber last weekend.
There was a point in the tournament where the team was down to nine skaters and players were coming off to take a breather, while throwing another player out there before going out again, and this was not unfamiliar territory for head coach Cody Brown’s crew.
“This weekend was definitely a huge challenge,” said Brown. “We had lots of guys go down and we’re playing with a short bench the whole weekend. We had a couple of injuries going into it and lost a couple of guys during the tournament and ran out of gas there towards the end. The boys battled right through and didn’t let up regardless of how many guys we had sitting on the bench.”
Brown said the boys showed up and played for each other, while some of them were put into situations that they’re not used to.
A positive to come of the weekend was that they were able to beat everybody once in the tournament and left there proud.
“At the end of the day we were on the hunt for that third banner,” said Brown.
“But regardless of how it turned out, you look back and there’s definitely no disappointment in the guys. They did what we asked of them time and time again. A real solid group of guys that shows up.”
The local bantam AA team opened up with a 3-2 win over the CBHA Rangers and a 4-2 win over the Taber Golden Suns on March 17. The Warriors defeated the St. Albert Bears 11-1 on March 18, before shutting out Beaumont 3-0 on March 19.