The Yorkton Clean Spot Novice Terriers captured the Major Hockey League recently, outscoring their rivals the Moosomin Blue Rangers in a two game total point series.
Head coach Trevor Herzog says the team completed a tremendous season, as the players kept skating harder and learning the skills imparted by the coaches. "The key to winning the season was the kids all played with heart and played with gumption and were ready to go for most of the games," says Herzog.
Herzog explained the playoff procedure in the novice division of the Major Hockey League. At the beginning of the season each team played 10 games against the five other teams in their pool. Each of the top teams in the four pools were then grouped into the A-side of the playoffs.
The Clean Spot Novices completed the round robin with a 10-0 record to advance to the playoffs where they finished with a 7-3 record against the other top five teams in the league. The 7-3 record put the Clean Spot Terriers into the top two against the Moosomin Blue Rangers in a two game total point series.
Yorkton always had a good record against the Blues, a good team as well, says Herzog. "We kept our kids pretty pumped up because we knew it was going to be a battle," he adds.
Yorkton won the first game of the final series in Moosomin 13-6. "It was key for our team because we knew it would be a close game tonight," Herzog points out. The two teams tied 7-7 in Yorkton in the second game of the series. "Even though we tied tonight, with our total points we won the series which gave us the A-side banner," he reports.
The win wrapped up the Clean Spot Terriers' season. About half the team will move up to the Atom hockey level next season. "They're going to have a big learning experience stepping into first year atom next year, but they'll be ready," Herzog declares.
The season highlight for Herzog as head coach was the great group of kids and parents he had to work with. Everybody helped out. It wasn't just the head coach, assistant coach or manager show. He appreciates people like Sherri Ferris who organized the novice tournament and supported the team all season. "It was an all-round great success for our whole team. We are all part of this and we all deserve to take some credit for the A-side," he closes.
