The Chestermere Crushers U14 and U16 teams are celebrating a successful end of the season.
The U14 girls’ team won city championships, and the U16 girls’ team won both city championships and provincials.
“Overall, the Crushers as an organization had a successful season,” said Chestermere Crushers Communications Coordinator, Jodie Hassett.
Throughout the season, the Chestermere Crushers organization ran into challenges, such as decreased registration, and the season starting later than normal due to COVID-19 shutdowns, and as a result, the season-ending late.
“Because everything got extended so much, there were players who were unable to continue through the entire extension because of other plans,” Hassett said.
Two U14 teams were combined, and four players were moved to the U16 team to accommodate for the players who were unable to continue through the entire season.
“U14 won city championships, they struggled at the beginning but improved every game by continuing to play games. After the season starts there’s not really any time for practices, and because they had to sort out the new dynamics, once that was sorted out and everybody started to gel they came together, and everybody had a great season,” Hassett said.
“The U16 did really well, they won city championships, and went onto provincials and won that too,” she said.
Adding, “For these guys, they have a lot of fun together. For the city championships, it was a double knockout, we went into the first two games knowing we had to win the first one, we had a nail-biter, and we were able to secure a second game. They played extremely well; our girls were very hungry for the gold”
For Hassett as a parent, seeing the comradery and sportsmanship the teams showed throughout the season was a highlight.
“When we were at provincials and had a rain delay, each team was in their own dugouts and the girls were playing tic- tac-toe with the game ball and rolling it across the dugout to the other team, and they would roll it back to our team,” Hassett said.
“There was a lot of comradery and everybody had a great time,” she said.
Throughout the last couple of years, the Chestermere Crushers have started the evaluation process earlier, to ensure the players get more practice time.
“We were finding when you put together a team in May, you get three or four practices, then games start and there’s no more time for practices,” Hassett said.
“Moving the process back a bit allows the kids a longer period of time to come together, learn how each other plays, and practice the skills before they apply them in a game,” she said.
By the end of the season, morale was high for both teams as the players were excited to go as far as they did.
“They were sad it was over, we had kids who maybe didn’t know if they wanted to play again, who are now going to,” Hassett said.
Adding, “Everybody enjoyed themselves enough they are going to register again. We’re hoping to boost registration.”
