The hanging heads of the players told the entire story.
The Humboldt Broncos are "disappointed" to have had their season end so early, in the first round of playoffs, with a 4-2 series loss to the Melfort Mustangs.
The Journal caught up with the team's head coach and general manager, Dean Brockman, just days after their Game 6 loss.
"I certainly thought we'd still be playing at this time," he said. "But reality will soon hit (and we will realize that) we did okay."
Heading into the playoffs, the Broncos were a much younger team than they were at the start of the season. A series of trades just before the January 10 deadline removed all but one 20-year-old from the Broncos' roster in order to set the team up when they host the 2012 RBC Cup.
Brockman gave full credit to his young team "for buying into what we were taking about."
It still hurts, he admitted, that this season is over, but when enough time passes, he thinks he'll be able to see it as a successful one.
Game 6
"For the whole series, we really couldn't score on the power play. That really hurt us," Brockman said when speaking of Game 6 against Melfort. "We just couldn't execute what we were trying to do. We had chances," he added, "which maybe a veteran team would have taken advantage of. A bit of inexperience at times hurt us."
As a team, the Mustangs were making acquisitions to get them some older players in order to win the league - pretty much opposite of what the Bronco did in unloading their 20-year-olds to set up for next season.
So for a young team like the Broncos to take them to six games in a series is pretty good, Brockman felt.
In the end, Melfort just had some of their veteran players step forward, while the young Broncos did not.
"Some of our younger guys (maybe) didn't understand how they had to step forward," he noted.
Brockman had words of praise for goaltender Andrew Bodnarchuk, the lone 20-year-old left on the team.
"As a four-year guy, he had some very good seasons and played extremely well for us for most of his time here. He's a quality kid with a bright future."
Bodnarchuk will be heading to Sacred Heart, where a scholarship is waiting for him.
Looking back
"A roller coaster ride" is what Brockman called the 2010-11 hockey season.
"For some reason, we just couldn't shake off the 'what about next year' (questions)," Brockman said. "That can create its own difficulties."
There were high expectations with the way Humboldt started the season, ranked as the top junior A team in the country for weeks in the fall.
Then that fell apart.
"We were in a free fall for a while," the coach noted. "But towards the end, we showed a team can really come together in a hurry if you make it happen."
This younger version of the team at the end of the season brought a lot of things about the game back to the coaching staff.
"We had fun," Brockman smiled.
They were a close-knit bunch and as their abilities improved, it made Brockman feel like "maybe I've still got it, a little bit, as a coach."
All the winning and losing, he said, "can make you doubt your ability as a coach," but it also drove him to be better.
In his long tenure with the Broncos, Brockman said he found the past season "the second-most challenging year, with next year being the most challenging."
Next year
"That's the sad part about losing. The talk is always about next year. The second we lost, (we) were already on next year... That's the downside of the offseason, which is potentially the biggest in the organization's history."
Brockman was, of course, referring to Humboldt's role as host of the 2012 RBC Cup, the national junior A hockey championship.
"We went from a regional stage to a national stage the second that game ended," Brockman said of their last playoff game this year.
As the host team, the Broncos will automatically have a berth at the 2012 tournament. But as competitive as Brockman is, he'd rather his team earn their way in.
"The goal is to go in the front door, not the back door," he said. "I want to play long enough so we're not sitting out for a lengthy period of time."
To do that, he's looking at filling the gaps in his team.
"Not everyone is in place," he said.
Because of that, Brockman is in full recruitment mode now, and has been for the past month. He's been watching players, looking at trades and trying to make his mind up about who he'll take from the teams he traded his 20-year-olds to for future considerations in January.
"I want to bring in the best available talent," he said. "There will be a lot of competition with the vets coming back."
This team will be very different from the Broncos who went to the RBC Cup in 2003, 2008 and 2009, Brockman said, because of the time they'll have been together.
"The teams we had in the past... we groomed for one year or two years before (heading to Nationals). This team is going to have to come together a lot quicker than in the past."
The pressure that will be put on next year's team will be a good thing, he feels.
"It forces you to be on your toes and work as hard as possible to make sure everything is going to work out."
Hosting the RBC Cup in 2012 will be a great thing for the city and for hockey fans, Brockman feels, but it's also going to create some challenges for the Broncos organization.
"There are going to be some tough decisions. And we won't have time to enjoy it," he smiled. They will work through it, though, and see where this biggest season in Humboldt Broncos history takes them.
In closing, Brockman thanked the Journal for its coverage of the Humboldt Broncos this season.
The Broncos will host their annual spring camp April 8-10.
