Local hockey talent is Allan Cup bound

By Tyler Lowey, Times Reporter

Strathmore will be well represented at the 2018 Allan Cup.
Armed with four locals, the Lacombe Generals captured their sixth straight Allan Cup Hockey West title and ninth of the decade.
With Brett Thurston and Devin Olson behind the bench, the Generals also employed local products Keenan Desmet and Kyle Sheen on the ice against the Stony Plain Eagles in the best-of-seven final.
The Generals didn’t need seven games, just five to earn their trip to Rosetown, Sask.
In Game 5, Desmet scored the winner in the second period by showing some patience in front of the net and tucking the puck underneath Eagles netminder Davis Jones.
The Generals were in full runaway mode after that, as they scored three more times to close out the second stanza and once more in the third for good measure, making the final 6-1 March 21 at the Gary Moe Auto Group Sportsplex.
For many of the Generals, Sheen, Desmet and Thurston included, it marked another trip to the national tournament. But for Olson, it meant that he was headed to a national tournament for the first time in his coaching career.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in minor hockey and won lots at the provincial level, but I’ve never experienced anything like the Allan Cup; it took a few days for that realization to soak in,” said Olson. “It was pretty exciting to advance the way we did. This team worked hard and everybody bought it.
The Generals took the season series 4-2 over the Eagles, but if Stony Plain didn’t get a bounce in overtime of Game 2, this series could have been over in four.
“Stony is a great team, no doubt about that, but the regular season and post season are two different things,” said Thurston, who will be making his sixth trip to the Allan Cup and first as a coach. “A lot of the time in the regular season, we might only have two or three lines. Guys have jobs and families that consume a lot of their time and that’s fine. But in the playoffs, we sensually get a better commitment out of everyone and we have a very deep team. At the end of the day, Stony Plain couldn’t keep up with us.”
The Generals picked up a 4-2 win in Game 1, lost 4-3 in overtime in Game 2, grounded the Eagles 7-2 in Game 3 and nearly duplicated that result with a 7-3 decision in Game 4.
Now, for the next week or so, the Generals will go back to the drawing board and work on plays at practice, before heading east for their opening game of the tournament April 10.
“The Allan Cup is a completely different animal. You don’t have a best-of-seven series to work things out. It’s a quick tournament and you need to hit it running right out of the gate,” said Thurston, who already has three Allan Cup titles under his belt.
With two pools of three, two round robin games will determine who gets a bye into the semis, while the bottom two teams in the pool crossover to play the other bottom two teams in a quarterfinal.
The Generals will open the tournament by taking on the host Rosetown Red Wings, a team that they have seen plenty in the past, as the Red Wings optioned to play in the Allan Cup Hockey West this season instead of the Saskatchewan Hockey Association Senior AAA league.
This year in six regular season meetings, Red Wings won the season series 5-1.
The unfortunate part about the Generals schedule is that their day off comes on the first day of competition, meaning they could play five games in five days.
In the Generals final round robin game, the Generals will take on the Stony Creek Generals of Ontario.
“There are a lot of guys on the team that have been to the Allan Cup before and they know a bunch of those guys, so we will have a bit of a plan for them,” said Olson. “But really, it’s all on us. If we go in and focus on our game and not worry about what the other team is trying to do, we should be fine.”
The national championship is slated for April 14 at a time to be determined later and will be broadcast on TSN.
“It would be an awesome feeling to win a national championship. Realistically, I will never coach in the NHL, so this is the next major hockey trophy you can win,” said Olson, who hopes to be back next year when the Allan Cup will be held in Lacombe. “Maybe we win one this next and next year, too.”