Championship dreams have come true for the Kikino Red Army midget-level minor hockey team. The squad defeated the Provost Blades in a tense nail-biter to claim first place in the Tier II A division last weekend.
Championship dreams have come true for the Kikino Red Army midget-level minor hockey team. The squad defeated the Provost Blades in a tense nail-biter to claim first place in the Tier II A division last weekend.
Kikino breezed through the first round of league playoffs, defeating Mannville in back-to-back games, but met their match against Provost in the first game of the final series on Friday, March 7. The Blades beat the Red Army 8-4.
Kikino turned the tables the following night at the Bold Center in Lac La Biche, with some help from a huge crowd of fans, sending Provost packing with a 6-3 victory.
“I’ ve never seen that many people at the Bold Center to watch a minor hockey game,” said Kikino head coach Cory Cardinal.
The fan support continued as the Red Army traveled to Provost for the final on Saturday the 14th.
A convoy of vehicles packed with fans followed the players that night to cheer them on. The team has benefited from a tremendous amount of support from Kikino and the surrounding area, according to Cardinal. Fans from Kikino, Lac La Biche, Buffalo Lake and Whitefish Lake all drove for approximately four hours each way to see the Red Army take the title.
“(The players) couldn’ t believe how much support they had,” said Cardinal. “When they came out (of the dressing room), the place was packed with fans. The atmosphere was almost like a home game.”
As it had been a back-and-forth series up to that point, the championship match in Provost was no different. The Blades claimed an early lead, closing the first period of the game three goals ahead.
The Red Army regained some lost ground in the second but couldn’ t completely close the gap. Provost was leading 4-3 at the start of the third period, sparking the nail-biter finale.
“With six minutes left in the game, we tied it up,” Cardinal said. “With two minutes left, we took the lead.”
At the 39-second mark, the Blades pulled their goalie for the extra attacker, but Kikino capitalized with an empty-netter. Provost’ s last hurrah was a goal with 24 seconds left. The puck stayed mostly in Kikino’ s end until the final buzzer, but Red Army goalie Kayle Houle made some spectacular saves to keep the score at 6-5 and make sure his team went home victorious, Cardinal says, crediting the entire team with the win.
“They played as a team and they won as a team,” he said. “It was an honour to coach these boys to win the banner.”
Some of the boys reached new milestones on their stats cards during the playoffs. Dalton Cardinal, Bryton White and Lynden Bird all played five-goal games, and the league’ s top four players in terms of points-Cardinal, Bird, Jonas Whitford and Dallas Jackson-all played for Kikino.
The division championship title has been a long time coming for the boys, the head coach says. After Kikino received a donation of hockey equipment from NHL player Rene Bourque, Columbus Blue Jackets player and Lac La Biche native, Cardinal and some of his peers decided to put together a minor hockey team from scratch.
“When we started this team, they were second-year Atoms,” he said. “Before that, they were just kids playing on an outdoor rink. Ever since, they always made the playoffs but fell short of winning the banner-until now.”
In the eight years that have passed since the team was first formed, the list of people involved who need to be thanked grows with each passing season. Cardinal would like to thank the Kikino Métis Settlement Council, coaching staff Wayne Radke and Michele Cardinal, trainers Chad Cardinal, Brad White and Darren Reid, former coach Jim Nashim, driver George Demarais and Rene Bourque, whose donation started it all.
This is the end of an era for some of the midget-level team’ s players, Cardinal says-they’ re too old to play another season in that division, but Kikino is looking to create a Junior B team, so the next step in the path might be right in front of them, he says.
He’ s also interested in starting a pre-novice-level team at Kikino and raising the next generation of minor hockey players.
“It’ s the end for one group of boys and the beginning for the next,” he said.
