Kings ready for playoffs

By Mario Prusina, Times Editor

The jockeying for position is over and preparation for the real season begins this week for the Wheatland Kings.
The local junior B club will tangle with the Medicine Hat Cubs in the opening round of the Heritage Junior Hockey League playoffs.
The Kings, who split their last two regular season games at home with a 4-3 loss to Sylvan Lake on Feb. 7 and beat Ponoka 9-5 the following day, finished the season with a 12-25-1 record.
By clinching the sixth place in the South Division, they will tangle with the third place Cubs, who finished the season with a 25-11-2 record. The top two teams in the division – the Okotoks Bisons and the Cochrane Generals – receive a first-round bye.
However, the regular season means nothing now, as everyone starts the playoffs with zero wins and zero losses.
“Since December, since we’ve started working on different transitions, they keep changing the way they work and it gets better and better every single game,” said head coach Ron West. “We’ve worked hard (against) every team we’ve played. We never quit on any team yet, so we will continue to push and get ready for the playoffs.
“We need to continue to work on the forecheck – push hard on the forecheck – and be better in the D zone with less panic. As long as we’re not panicking and staying in our positions … push them to the outside. That’s what we have to do in the D zone.”
Despite dropping all four games to Medicine Hat, the Kings kept three of the four games within two goals or less.
The challenge now will be to take advantage of a Cubs team that lost a home-and-home series versus Cochrane with a first-round bye on the line. The Cubs lost 2-1 and 6-0 in the final two games of the regular season.
However, West knows all that means nothing when the puck drops in Game 1.
“(The regular season is) a five and it will go to a nine (out of 10) in terms of the intensity,” said the coach. “The intensity is totally different. It goes up another level.”
The Kings will open the best of five series on the road Feb. 13 in Medicine Hat before returning to the Strathmore Family Centre for Game 2 on Feb. 14 (8 p.m.). Game 3 will be in Medicine Hat on Feb. 16 and Game 4 – if necessary – will be Feb. 17 (7:45 p.m.) at the Strathmore Family Centre.