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Lacoka Midgets off to strong start

Last weekend’s games were a good start for the Lacoka team

BY ZACHARY CORMIER

Lacombe Express

The defending Rocky Mountain Female Hockey League north division midget champions haven’t wasted any time getting out of the gates this season.

This is shaping up to be a pretty good year for the Lacoka Midget female hockey team, who last weekend swept to a pair of victories, including a 4-2 win over Endmoor and a whopping 14-1 win over Edson.

“They have a pretty strong team and the league they’re in is probably not quite as competitive as it has been in past years. But their team is really, really strong,” said Lacoka Midget Head Coach Peter Hall after the weekend’s games.

Hall said the team, who captured the RMFHL league championship last season, aren’t feeling pressured to re-claim the title this year.

“I think they just like to win,” he said, adding that most of the midget team’s new players are coming from a Lacoka Bantam team which captured both provincial and league gold last season, so there is lots of winning experience on the roster.

Still, he said, there’s always room for improvement.

“Our Midget girls who are returning won the Northern league, they didn’t win provincials. So there’s still goals out there and they’d like to attain them.”

Last weekend’s games were a good start for the Lacoka team, who at the time of writing have posted a 3-0-1 record overall this season.

Hall said the game against Edson was a good example of what he likes about this group of girls because the 14 goals that the group scored were spread out amongst the team.

“Everybody contributed, so that’s kind of the best part. It isn’t all about one kid. There’s some stronger players for sure, but everybody contributes and everybody plays. And there’s buy-in to that,” he said.

That depth is going to come in handy as Lacoka tries to repeat as champions for the second year straight.

In order to get there, though, they’re going to have to go through Stettler, who won the provincial tournament last season despite being defeated by Lacoka in the league final.

“There’s good competition there. Stettler only lost two kids from their team last year. I think we have some additions and we lost a total of four and five from last year and we’ve got a full team,” Hall said, adding that when the two sides met earlier this month, they ended up battling to a 2-2 tie.

“That’s going to be competitive for sure and it sets us up well to take a run at that provincial tournament as well as league. So it will be a good year, it will be fun. It’s about maintaining the work ethic in order to succeed and that’s a good life lesson.”

zcormier@lacombeexpress.com