They survived a big scare of having a fun weekend cancelled, so the Indus Hurricanes peewee A team breathed a sigh of relief booking the ticket to provincials.
It took a massive comeback in the Zone 6 playdowns for the Hurricanes to qualify for the peewee B provincial championship in 3Cs (Castor, Consort and Coronation).
Being the first team to qualify, they got the jump to find accommodation, meaning the team will be together for the entire weekend in those towns.
If they keep their momentum going, they might be celebrating a provincial crown and the end of a very successful season.
“They are excited to go,” said head coach Jeremy Holt. “It’s another tournament, and the kids always seem excited to go stay in a hotel and it doesn’t matter what hotel. They are just going to stay somewhere else.”
“With the Hurricanes, a lot of them hang out at school together. There really isn’t a lot of turmoil in this team. The teammates are hard on one another but also laugh a lot. They are all pretty good friends. If they end up winning provincials, they will be friends for life.”
It certainly wasn’t an easy road to get there. After knocking out Medicine Hat 12-7 in the first round (two-game, total-goal series), the Hurricanes moved swiftly past Sundre in the second round, winning the series 9-3.
The third round took them to Cochrane, where the Hurricanes picked a bad time to play their worst game of the season. They dropped Game 1 of the series 9-6, putting pressure on themselves heading back home for Game 2.
“It was a tale of two teams I tell you,” Holt said. “We didn’t play well there and they showed up here Saturday and it was a total reversal. I told them it was fairly simple. We need to outplay them and we need to beat them by four.”
Holt took the old ‘one thing at a time’ method with the team, keeping them focused on chipping away at the three-goal lead instead of getting overwhelmed by a monumental comeback.
“You have to look at the bad games,” Holt said. “You can’t look too far ahead. It’s a cliche but everybody uses it. If you keep looking ahead then you are probably playing the wrong game. It worked out well. They came out and had a good couple of periods. It was 3-1 heading into the third period and I just said we need two. That’s all we need. Minimum. Then one went. Two went in. Three went in. We ended up scoring four that period. They seemed they needed some goals and we got it.”
The 7-1 victory in that Game 2 sent them to 3Cs and the tournament that runs from March 23-26.
“We pulled it off and that’s what put us in provincials,” Holt said. “It was good for us coaches. The game before didn’t give us a lot of hope. It was a wakeup call for the boys too. It showed them there are teams out there who can play with them.”
