Chestermere Minor Hockey completed their most successful season on record with 18 of the 21 Chestermere Laker’s teams competing in the Central Alberta Hockey League made the playoffs.
“We had eight teams make the finals…and we won five league banners,” said Chestermere Minor Hockey President Shane Hainstock.
The Atom AA team also won a silver medal at Provincials.
Hainstock credits the minor hockey club’s successes to both the players and all the volunteers who support the organization.
“We have a solid group of volunteers from our board to the coaches to the managers,” he said.
Not only was this the most successful year on the ice, it was a lot of fun for both the players and their fans.
“The rinks were packed for all the home playoff games,” said Hainstock.
Looking ahead to next year’s season, Hainstock would like all the teams to continue to be successful.
To that end, the association’s hockey development group has begun implementing programs to help with individual player skills.
“They’re going to be working to better that program next season,” he said.
While they would like to see a repeat of this year’s successes, Hainstock said hockey is a hard game to predict.
“Hockey’s a weird game…we could win zero or win six, seven, eight,” he said, “it depends on the mix of kids and how everything goes.”
Regardless of the results he wants the players on the association’s 30 teams and the tiny mites group to improve, have fun and continue to want to play the game.
