The 2015/16 season has so far been a good one for the Yorkton RawTec Maulers, who currently sit tied for second place in the ultra-competitive SMAAAHL with a record of 13-5-1 and 27 points.
It’s because of that record that the season has gotten even better, as the Maulers have recently been invited to be one of the 25 male teams to compete at the 2015/16 edition of the prestigious Mac’s Midget AAA World Invitational Tournament in Calgary, Alberta, from December 26 to January 1. “It’s definitely an honour to get invited to the Mac’s,” said RawTec Mauler head coach Graham Garrett, adding it’s the first time the program has been invited to the tournament since year two of his first tenure with the team in the 2009/10 season. “We haven’t been there for a while, so that was one of the goals we had at the start of the season and we’ve accomplished that.”
The Maulers will no doubt be one of the youngest teams competing in a tournament generally dominated by older, more experienced teams; however Garrett feels that while the Maulers are young, the experience the first year midgets have at high calibre tournaments will go a long way to levelling the playing field. “Our 2000’s have played in some of the best tournaments in Western Canada over the last two years going to Western’s both years and going to St. Albert and Calgary twice, so as teams those are huge tournaments,” mentioned Garrett. “Then we had guys going to the under 16’s for 99’s and 2000’s, so we’ve got a lot of guys with the experience of big time tournament hockey and hopefully that will help us in Calgary even though we’ll be a young team.”
But while the youngsters on the team will be looking to turn some heads come the end of December, the veteran players are also hoping to make an impact.
Third year Mauler forward Drayson Skulmoski believes that making it to the Mac’s is an accomplished goal that took three years to meet, and now that he and his team are going the knowledge that they’ve finally qualified simply isn’t enough. “I think we as a team deserve to go there this year and the next step is to play hard and win some games,” offered Skulmoski, who has four goals and seven assists in 19 games this season. “I think we should do very well. I’ve never been there before and it’s a big tournament, but we have a good team and we should do very well.”
Since its inception in 1978 over 125 players that have competed at the Mac’s tournament have gone on to NHL careers, including Jarome Iginla, Mike Modano and Sidney Crosby, while countless more have played minor pro all throughout the world.
