Saints Look To Avenge Last Year’s Doyle Cup Loss:

This was in todays Grove Examiner Newspaper:

Saints look to avenge last year’s Doyle Cup loss

By Gord Montgomery

In days long past, St. Patrick was credited with driving the snakes out of Ireland. In this day and age, the Spruce Grove Saints are looking to drive the Snakes out of the RBC Cup playoff race.

For the second straight year the Saints and the Vernon Vipers, affectionately referred to as the "Snakes", will hook up in the Doyle Cup Championship, and from early indications this meeting should be no less thrilling than last year's final, won in seven games by the B.C. reps.

The Saints' rookie bench boss, Jason Mckee, says his team this year is a different one from last year, for many reasons.

Yeah, they're big, and yeah they have strong goaltending and good defence just like last season. And sure, they finished on top of their league again for the third straight year, but there is a noticeable change with this team from year's past.

"I think we're more of a physical team and have a more physical element throughout the entire lineup," Mckee stated. "Everyone seems to have a way of contributing to the team. We don't have any flashy superstars. We didn't have anyone in the top-10 in league scoring. We just have a real team approach."

Another area where this team differs from the previous year is this crop of Saints realizes there's more work to be done. While they're happy to again win the Enerflex Cup, that's not the end goal of this team.

One of the returning players, David Glen, said his club's work is only partially done after winning their second straight AJHL championship and he is looking forward to the Doyle re-match.

"Last year, it was kind of like this (the AJHL championship) was the major goal," he said after the final buzzer in a convincing 5-1 win over Camrose to take the league crown in five games. "This year we know we can go further and we're excited to do that."

Having been down this road before is going to help immensely, he continued.

"It's always going to help to have that experience on our side," he said of last year's seven-game battle with the Vipers. "I know they've pretty much overhauled their whole team there, that they have a good goalie, play good systems and are well coached, but we'll be ready for them this time."

Like the Vipers, the Saints did a large reconstruction project over this season replacing 10 players from the year before. Yet the rookies that stepped in did an admirable job in learning to play at this level, veteran Josh Koper said.

"The young guys really stepped it up. They grew more than I've ever seen with any team before. Yeah, no one really expected this (title repeat) but we came together as a team. We may not have as much talent as last year but we grew and battled throughout the whole season."

As for his team's renovation project, Glen credited the new kids on the block for growing by leaps and bounds this season. The new faced included a trio of blue liners – Corey Chroneyko, Dustin Fostvelt and Matthew Benning and three forwards, Dylan Richard, Sammy Spurell and Michael Claffey - who all played with veteran-like composure.

At the same time, Glen noted everyone worked extra time in becoming an extra good club.

"It was a lot of hard work," he began. "I've never been a part of a more committed group. We're four lines deep with six D and that's the key to our success for sure."

In assessing how his team grew during this year to post a league-leading 50-6-0-4 record, which included two losses by default at the end of the year for dressing too many under-age players, and then rolling to a 12-1 playoff record, Mckee said everyone in the dressing room bought into what the coaching staff was preaching.

A big reason for that success is the Saints have developed a style to call their own and stuck to it – for the most part – during a long season.

"We really put an emphasis on what we're doing and executing our game plan," the head coach/GM of the club stated. "We make teams adjust to us. There are certain things in our game that makes us successful and when we're doing them we're a real good team.

"Over this year we've been able to process those things and understand what they are. We have a real good team identity and that's a good thing to have as a group. If we go out and play our game we give ourselves a good chance to win every night."

With all of that being said, the vets and coaches know what they learned in the series with the Vipers last year will be important this time around.

"I think the biggest thing is we know there's going to be lots of ups and downs," Mckee said in wrapping up.

"On the mental side of it, I think we're much more prepared with the experience and understanding that this isn't too big for us. It was a real unknown last year to everyone. This year it's not – we have the experience and know what goes into the process.

"We're excited for this opportunity. Very rarely do you get to do this two years in a row against the same team, so it's a pretty unique situation."

In giving Glen the last word, the big forward suggested this team, this time around, knows they're skating into a snake pit.

"Going through what we did last year, we'll be ready for it this time."