By Alex Soloducha

PHOTOS: Mintos arrive home to happy fans

Apr 28, 2014 | 6:27 PM

The Prince Albert Mintos received a warm welcome home this afternoon, even though the weather was cold.

About 50 fans were camped out waiting for the team to return from Moose Jaw after their Telus Cup win.

This marks their third win in the last six years, and they seemed pretty happy about it.

“It still hasn’t quite sunk in, I mean, we’re national champions, the best team in the country,” said Dakota Boutin, the Mintos forward who scored the game winning goal.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling.”

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One man who waited outside under grey skies has followed the team to their three Telus Cup wins, although not always in person.

“I’ve been cheering on the team since 2003 so I was able to witness both their previous two cups. We were actually in Red Deer, my daughter was four years old at the time. We’re not parents, we’re not billets, we’re just big fans of AAA hockey and the Mintos especially,” said Tony Pellerin.

He caught some games earlier in the tournament but missed the last game, only because his daughter had a dance competition in Prince Albert over the weekend.

Pellerin said his attraction to the brand of hockey comes from how it combines the players’ connection to the local community with their love of hockey.

From the player’s perspective, Boutin credits some of their win to being well rested under the grueling schedule of eight games in seven days.

“Through the whole season, every practice we all gave it our all and stayed later after practice and skated a bit just in case… so we’d be prepared and so we’d have more energy than the other team,” he said.

But at the end, the final game all came down to one thing for Boutin – “we all had more heart than they did and we wanted it more.”

asoloducha@rawlco.com

On Twitter @alex_soloducha and @chelsealaskowsk

On Twitter @alex_soloducha