The Vulcans celebrate a win following a game in October. (Vulcans Prince Albert/Facebook)

By Derek Craddock

LET'S GO VULCANS

‘Couldn’t be happier’: Coach of AA hockey team reflects on season so far

Nov 19, 2022 | 4:02 PM

One of the many hockey teams that call Prince Albert home is looking forward to building on what’s been a great season so far.

The Prince Albert U18 AA Vulcans recently won the Ron Gunville Memorial Tournament, a competition that head coach Derek Simonson said means a lot to the team and the city.

“The Gunville family is tightly woven into the hockey community in Prince Albert,” he said. “To win that trophy is pretty important for the team and it’s sort of a nice feather in the cap to kids that participated this past weekend.”

The Vulcans went undefeated in the tournament and won the final game 4-1 over the Indigenous Sports Academy (ISA).

With the season already two months down, Simonson said it’s been a great year so far.

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“We have a great group of kids with 17-year-old, 16-year-old and 15-year-olds. It’s very important to our coaching staff and our team that we develop a really good culture and also teach some hockey along the way,” he said. “We’re very fortunate that the cohesiveness and the skill level and the kids buy into what we’re teaching is going great. We couldn’t be happier.”

As of Friday, the team has six wins on the season, putting in fifth place in their division in the Saskatchewan AA Hockey League.

Simonson said like many hockey teams in the city, they break the season down in segments and are already moving on to the next one.

“We’re moving on to sort of our next segment and that takes us into the end of December,” he said. “So just continue to trend in the right direction and continue to improve. One message we always send our kids is that every practice, every game is an opportunity to get better.”

Keethan Isbister who had a breakout performance at the Ron Gunville Tournament leads the team with eight goals and 11 points so far this season while Joshua Henry and Brayden Lyons have been stellar in net, with four and three wins a piece respectivle.

The Vulcan’s next game is on Sunday night as they take on Saskatoon.

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derek.craddock@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @PA_Craddock