A new season is here for the Bow Valley Bantam AA Timberwolves.
Cochrane Minor Hockey’s elite bantam side (13-14 year olds) opened the South Central Alberta Bantam AA Hockey League season with a win and a loss, defeating visiting Airdrie Lightning 8-3 on Sept. 25 before hitting the road and losing at Strathmore Wheatland Kings by the same score the following night.
T-wolves head coach Tyson Soloski, a former Cochrane Generals captain who helped coach the Midget AA Timberwolves last season, likes the look of this year’s bantam squad. His coaching staff includes another former Generals captain, Chris Hugo, and Brandon Harrison.
“Pretty good. We have a lot of work to do and a lot of skill to add,” Soloski said of this season’s Bantam AA T-wolves. “But the work ethic is there, so can’t complain.”
The team boasts returning players like Dean Olenyk, Nick Drennan and Ty Parker.
“They’re definitely leaders out there and need to be,” Soloski said of his returning group.
Olenyk led T-wolves scoring against Airdrie, netting two goals and two assists in the 8-3 season opener. Parker had a goal and an assist and Drennan an assist.
And it’s still early days, just two games into the season.
“I’m mostly helping out with forwards. I’m focussing on work ethic, attitude, that kind of stuff,” Hugo related. “Keep ’em positive. I like the forwards, they are all skilled. We have 10 skilled forwards. You can’t go wrong with that.”
And there were few, if any, adjustments for the first-year bantams coming up from peewee, which doesn’t allow body-checking.
“The four (peewees) we got, I didn’t know they were first-years until after,” Hugo said. “I couldn’t tell they’d never played contact hockey before. We worked on contact this week in practice. It’s not really a concern for us at this point.”
Harrison’s coaching chore is to ensure Bow Valley’s bantams are sound on the back end.
“Working with the defence this year. We’re looking all right,” Harrison said. “We have some things to work on still, some skills to develop. Just do the simple things right and see how it goes.”
The coaches want to build the team up over the season to have players in top form for the playoffs.
“Just have everyone work as hard as they can and improve as much as they can. That’s our coaching-staff goal,” Soloski surmised. “Definitely, our team goal is to make the playoffs because it’s a tournament format this year. Whether you squeak in or dominate in the regular season, anything can happen. It’s a round-robin. If you win two of three or three of four, you probably make it to the finals of that playoff tournament.”
Other Bow Vally point-getters in Bow Valley’s season-opener vs. Airdrie included Hunter Latchuk (1 assist), Eric Wozniewicz (1a), Sam Kroon (1a), Caleb Willms (1 goal, 1a), Francesco Perkovic (2a), Ethan Noble (1g, 1a), Morgan Wulff (1g), Connor Stephenson (1g), and Bailey Peterson with a goal and an assist.
Alec Halwas kicked out 28 shots in Bow Valley’s net.
Peterson, Stephenson and Willms got T-wolves goals Sept. 26 in Strathmore with Jay Thompson making 42 saves.
