At the beginning of the season, I went to take a team photo of the Peewee Reps. When I asked one of the parents how they thought the team would do this year, they answered, “It’s hard to say, they’re a pretty young team...”
Well, that pretty young team turned out to be one of the strongest minor hockey teams in the northwest – going undefeated in the Skeena Valley League, winning one tournament and finishing well at all of the others, and outscoring their zone playoff competitors 38-6 before winning the northwest playoff championships late last month. They’re now headed to Peewee Tier 3 Provincials in Creston this weekend, March 17.
“We came to play and we won, simple as that,” said one of the team’s five coaches, Kevin Kennedy. “We’ve got a really good group this year, pretty proud of them – I don’t want to say that we didn’t expect big things from them, but we’re a very young team with a lot of first-time players and first-time rep players, and they’ve responded really well. They’re a very coachable group and I think they’ve learned a lot and come a long way and we’ve had really terrific success.”
Undefeated at the zone championship tournament, held here in Terrace, they beat Smithers twice, once in a round robin game 5-4, and again in the finals 7-1. They stunned Kitimat 14-1 and the game against Rupert was 9-2.
There’s no question offence is their specialty.
But they’re also very disciplined, says Kennedy.
“We’ve had kind of bad experiences – we’re a big team, playing a physical game – so we shut that off, and we had the fewest number of penalty minutes in the zones,” he said.
It also helps that they have two solid goalies, he said, although they struggle with sometimes not seeing a lot of shots.
“Against Rupert and Kitimat they’re seeing maybe 10, 12 shots in a game, so they do a good job of staying focused – they have to,” he said.
And Kennedy says good leadership – both by players like Brandon Onstein, Mason Richey, and Greg Kennedy, and his fellow coaches – has been key to the team’s success as well.
“The guys that I coach with are real devoted and dedicated, and they go out of their way to put the kids first and I think because of that, the kids have learned a lot,” he said. “I think [the players have] all come a long, long way and as a team we’ve managed to come together as a team too, so we’re peaking at the right time going into provincials.”
As for the team’s chances at provincials, they’re watching Dawson Creek, who will be tough competitors.
“They’ve won a number of tournaments at a much higher tier than the provincials are,” he said. “But you never know. Who would’ve thought the LA Kings were going to win the Cup last year?”
And the Terrace Peewee Reps aren’t the only team travelling to provincials – the Bantam Female Reps are also heading to Vernon for their shot at the top spot in the province.