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Bantam rep players ecstatic to get to sleep in their own beds |
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Written by JASON PETERS, Citizen staff
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Wednesday, 03 December 2008 |
They have played 18 games so far this season. Not one of them has been on friendly ice.
For the Farr Fabricating Cougars, that will change this weekend.
The Cougars are hosting the six-team White Spot bantam hockey tournament at the Kin Centre. Games get underway on Friday and continue through Sunday, with a championship final planned for 12:30 p.m. in Kin 1.
All those Farr Fab road contests have been necessary because the Cougars are the only bantam Tier 1 club in this part of the province. So, they don’t have any home and away league games. The only other option is to play exhibition contests and in tournaments, and all of those have been out of town.
Sean LeBrun, head coach of the Cougars, hopes this situation will improve for next season. For 2009-10 league play, he’d like the Cougars to skate in the Okanagan Mainline Amateur Hockey Association.
“We tried to get into the OMAHA league (for this season) and something fell apart right at the last second so we ended up not having a league to play in,” he said.
“That’ll be one of the priorities for us heading into the spring, is to push to try and get into that OMAHA league for next year. Then it just gives us seven or eight weekends where we don’t have to try and find games. We’ll know where we’re going, we’ll know where we need to be, what games we’re playing. Right now, all we do is work the phones and try and find games.”
The Cougars, holders of a 6-10-2 record, will open the White Spot tournament Friday in Kin 1 with a 12:45 p.m. game against Terrace. They will also skate against North Delta (Friday, 7 p.m., Kin 1), Grande Prairie (Saturday, 9:15 a.m., Kin 2), Pursuit of Excellence Hockey Academy of Kelowna (Saturday, 4:45 p.m., Kin 1) and Quesnel (Sunday, 8 a.m., Kin 1).
The tournament will be a round-robin affair, and the top two teams will meet in Sunday’s final. The Cougars, who have seven first-year bantams and 11 second-year bantams in uniform, don’t know much about any of the clubs they’ll play. But, LeBrun expects Grande Prairie and Pursuit of Excellence to be loaded with talent.
“The Alberta teams are always strong and the Pursuit of Excellence obviously is going to be a strong team,” he said. “I think they (Pursuit) have quite a few first-years on that team as well. I haven’t seen any of the teams but I would think we’ll be in the hunt (to make it to the final).”
Members of the Cougars are Chase Witala, Kody Disher, Jake LeBrun, Matt Warner, Kirk Hards, Tanner Fjellstrom, Curtis Bellamy, Regan Young, Hayden James Berra, Brody Wicki, Brodie Moulding, Colton Manning, Josh Connolly, Raymond Grewal, Cole Weber, Derek Volling and goaltenders Nathan Warren and Jared Young. The team relies on a balanced scoring attack and tries to use an in-your-face forecheck.
“That’s how we create our goals,” said Sean LeBrun, who is helped out by associate coach Chris Bond. “We don’t get too many on the transition game. We like to get the puck deep and work it around and try and score goals.”
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 03 December 2008 )
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