It was a successful weekend on the road for the Prince Albert Junior Raiders in Edmonton.
The Junior Raiders took home gold at the Edmonton All Star Invitational over the weekend with a 5-2 win over Peace River in the final.
Aki Seitsonen, the team’s head coach says the tournament and spring season has a playoff feel for the players.
“These kids were born in 2015, so they were the younger kids of the U11 this year. They’ve been playing against some good, older players all year. I think that was kind of a benefit for us, they make three A-teams in the U11, and a lot of our kids that are playing in this spring team, they’ve been battling against the older 2014-born players all winter, and I think they really come along with their strength and skills. The sun comes out and it’s warm at nice facilities. It almost feels like a little bit of playoff hockey for the athletes.”
Prince Albert finished pool play with two wins over New Hampshire and Fort Mac and a tie against Woodlands.
In the semi-final, Prince Albert knocked off Grande Prairie 7-2 to advance to the gold medal game.
Seitsonen says the weekend was a team effort from start to finish.
“The boys just kept working hard, bought into the game plan. We made a simple game plan for the boys. If you can’t have two on ones or whatever, we get to the red line and then we chase the puck. The guys really bought into the game plan and we had some good individual efforts. The goalies played unreal. The forwards played good and then the defense just kept battling, kept all the good players on the outside and we were able to win the first two games, tied the third game and the semi-finals, the boys played a heck of a game to get ourselves in the gold medal game for Sunday.”
With the entirety of the roster consisting of players born in 2015, all the players will have eligibility in the 11U age division next season. Seitsonen says a lot of the players on his team will have a future in the sport of hockey.
“They’re just good little human beings, come from good families and get very dedicated to the sport of hockey. Some kids put extra effort, doing some power skating out in the winter. You can just see that they’re really excited about playing the game.”
sports@paherald.sk.ca
