After finishing the regular season with a record-breaking 23 wins and one loss, the Ooks headed into the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conferences provincial tournament as the first seed from the north, taking on the Medicine Hat Rattlers in the quarter-final.
The Ooks had a tough showing and lost to the Rattlers, putting them out of medal contention, fortunately for the team they have a second shot as they are hosting nationals which gives them an automatic eighth seed birth.
Although the Ooks were unable to capture the ACAC title, the team thinks the loss may not have been the worst thing to happen, coach Warnick is confident they learned a valuable lesson that will help them in the national tournament.
“You never wanna lose but a loss is only truly a loss if you don’t learn anything from it. Unlike every other team in the country on their backside that are just playing it out to play together for the last few times, we were still playing for something. We had to prepare for each of those games, each was another step in the path at being here at the national tournament.”
The players are also optimistic, not looking at the loss as something to be defeated by, but rather taking the underdog role and using it to their advantage. Torey Hill a fifth year and ACAC all-conference member is excited about the opportunity to play the defending champions and current number one ranked team in the country, the Humber Hawks.
“Being the underdog takes the pressure off right, you know what, being number one is good too but when you come in as an underdog you don’t have to prove to anyone, you’re just playing for yourselves and whatever happens, happens.”
The tournament starts Thursday, March 16, opening with the host Ooks taking on Humber at 1 p.m.
