SUNDRE – The Sundre U18 Huskies had a good run this season but were ultimately unable to make it past the first round of playoffs.
“We had a lot of injuries coming into playoffs,” said coach Jason Martyn.
“I think we would have done a lot better if we weren’t playing with injuries at the end of the season,” said Martyn. “When a lot of your driving players are injured, it really takes the momentum out of that game.”
They faced off against New Sarepta – one of the top teams in their division – in the Central Alberta Hockey League’s U18 tier 3 red first round of playoffs.
“In the regular season, we lost to them one game and then beat them one game,” the coach said.
The first playoff game was on the road on Friday, Feb. 21 and the Huskies’ captain was taken out of action in the first shift on account of a hurt shoulder, with the hosts later going onto win 4-1.
The second match was on home ice at the Sundre Arena on Sunday, Feb. 23 when the Huskies almost managed to claw their way back from the brink.
“We played a really good game,” he said.
“We had three players that came back and played through their injuries to help us out, but we just couldn’t pull her off,” he said, adding they were defeated 6-4.
With the dust settled, the Huskies placed sixth out of nine teams in their league.
“It all boiled down to the last games,” he said, adding there was a narrow point spread among the teams in fourth to seventh place.
“It was a pretty tight league, which was nice … we were all pretty even,” he said.
Overall, the team’s season was a competitive one that went well, he said.
“We got a fairly young team that stepped up to play in the strong tier three,” he said, adding things more or less went as expected.
“I was kind of hoping we would have made it a little farther but just with them injuries, I think that’s what was our demise.”
Drawing New Sarepta in first round wasn’t necessarily bad luck, as the Huskies would have faced stiff competition either way.
“Sylvan Lake and Rocky Mountain House, they were all strong,” he said.
“There were three really strong teams at the top of our division … this division was very even, so it didn’t matter where you ended up in the draw, you were still going to have a challenging game.”
Looking ahead to the 2025-26 season, the Huskies’ roster will largely remain the same.
“We only have three guys retiring this year,” he said. “So next year will be a fairly large squad and a fairly talented squad, with a majority of them having that first-year experience already underneath them.”
But while playoffs are over, their 2024-25 season isn’t quite yet done with plans to play at the Joust in the South year-end tournament on March 21-23 that’s hosted by the Knights Hockey Club in Calgary.
“They always put it on so that any teams that want to not give up hockey early, they have a tournament they can get into,” he said.
“We’re still practising and keeping everybody conditioned on Wednesdays until the tournament,” he said. “And then our season’s over.”
