Bantam girls skate at provincials

One of the youngest bantam teams in the Rocky Mountain Female Hockey League picked up a whole heap of experience last weekend.
The Strathmore Storm bantam B girls might not have earned the result they desired, but they put forth a strong showing at the bantam B provincials March 14 to 17 in Stettler.
“Overall, we were quite pleased with our showing. It was a little disappointing to lose our first game Saturday morning as we didn’t play that well, but the girls bounced back and knocked off the top Calgary team to close out the weekend,” said Storm Head Coach Rick Puttick.
Operating with one of the youngest teams in the league, all but two of the Storm’s 15 players will presumably be back next season.
The young local squad opened the tournament by tying the Okotoks Oilers Green 2-2 and followed that up with an 8-0 shelling by Camrose.
The Beaver Lodge Blades shaved the Storm 3-2 in their third round robin game, a game that could have propelled the Storm into the playoff round against Okotoks.
“That Beaver Lodge loss was a tough one,” said Puttick. “It was a closely played game and the girls worked hard, we just couldn’t get the bounce in the end. That could have set us up nicely in the rest of the tournament.”
Then in their final game, with their fate already sealed as a non-playoff team, the Storm trailed 2-0 in the first five minutes to the Calgary Silver, only to battle back and clip the Calgary contingent 6-4.
“We had great growth this season and this tournament should be a good learning point for a bunch of our girls,” said Puttick. “Hopefully they all had a good experience and are better for it moving forward.”
The provincials wrapped up a season in which the Storm were involved in plenty of one-goal games. Their final record of 3-10-5 might be deceiving, as 13 of their 18 games were decided by one goal or ended up tied.
“We played in a lot of close games this season and I think they are better now because of it,” said Puttick.