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Peewee team shares title in wake of crash

NORTHEAST — A local peewee hockey team is sharing a provincial title with a Regina team after their final tie-breaking game was to be held two days after the Broncos bus crash.
Peewee AA Ramblers
The Peewee AA Ramblers are sharing the provincial title with the Regina Prairie Storm for the 2017-18 season. From left are manager Sonia Flammand, Raydr Wallington, manager Christie Myhre, Cole Talyor, Blake Ekren-Bratton, coach Mike Woodward, Roan Woodward, Zach Bansley, Pavel MacKenzie, Matthew Ofukany, Cohen Morin, Hunter Bleile, coach Curtis Bleile, Luke Fortier, Finley Radloff, Owen Myhre, coach Sheldon Ofukany and Tarin Smith. Not present are Kieran Patterson, Nolan Patterson and Franky Chaboyer. Photo by Devan C. Tasa

NORTHEAST — A local peewee hockey team is sharing a provincial title with a Regina team after their final tie-breaking game was to be held two days after the Broncos bus crash.

The Tisdale Peewee AA Ramblers were going to play the final in Nipawin against the Regina Prairie Storm April 8 because the ice at the Tisdale RECplex was removed for the rodeo. A day after the April 6 crash, Mike Woodward, the head coach of the Ramblers, talked with the other coach and officials with the Saskatchewan Hockey Association about whether they should go ahead.

“The other coach and myself said no, let’s just consider it a co-championship,” Woodward said. “It just didn’t feel really right to play the game and it was in the best interest of everybody involved to not play it.”

Because the game was in Nipawin, the bus would have had to have pass by the collision site.

The Ramblers, which had players from Cumberland House, Nipawin, Tisdale, Zenon Park, Rose Valley and Porcupine Plain, were having a solid playoff run after overcoming some difficulties in the regular season.

“We never won a tournament that we were in throughout the year and it was just at the end of the year we came together,” said Sheldon Ofukany, the team’s assistant coach.

Woodward told the team that hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard, something they really bought into.

During the Centre Four League finals, the Ramblers faced off against North Battleford, West Central and Prince Albert, beating all of them in two games out of a possible three and taking the league title. They then went to the northerns where they faced the Saskatoon Express, losing one and winning two. The provincials, against the Prairie Storm, saw the Ramblers win at home and lose away.

When the team heard they would be sharing the provincial title with the Prairie Storm, the reaction was mixed.

“Initially they wanted to play and didn’t really understand the magnitude of the accident,” Woodward said. “We spent some time talking about it after and of course they were respectful and understood it.”

Both teams will get a banner and all team members will get a medal.

“It was the right decision,” Woodward said. “The SHA was really supportive. Everybody involved was really supportive, that it was the right decision to share the championship.”

Both Woodward and Ofukany said they wanted to acknowledge the effort of the two managers, Sonia Flamand and Christie Myhre, as well as the parents.