The moment the PBCN Stars won the 2023 Senators Cup on April 17, 2023. (Logan Lehmann/paNOW staff)

By Logan Lehmann

Eyes on the Prize

The redeem team: PBCN Stars looking for gold at National Championship

May 18, 2023 | 2:00 PM

The PBCN Stars are in search of some hardware this go around at the Fred Sasakamoose Chief Thunderstick National Hockey Championship in Saskatoon.

There will be 30 teams from across the country at the tournament, including 12 from Saskatchewan, eight from Quebec, seven from Manitoba, five from Alberta, and one each from New Brunswick, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories. Among those in PBCN’s pool are the Sandy Lake Chiefs (Sask.), OCN Winterhawks (Man.), Elsipogtog Oilers (N.B.), and La Ronge 89ers (Sask.).

“Overall, I think it’s a pretty tough pool,” said 2023 Senator’s Cup Top Forward Darwin Morin. “All the teams in our pool are very skilled and good so it’s going to be a tough one. We’ll take it one game at a time to see if we can make Sunday. It’s up to the boys as well to put in the work so we can get there.”

The path to National Gold begins Thursday for the Stars when they take on a familiar foe in the La Ronge 89ers. PBCN also comes into the tournament as the back-to-back Senator Cup Champions, something that Morin says is nothing but a target on the back.

“It makes us a bigger target,” he said. “I would like to say that we’re the most hated team right now. We’re dealing with (the pressure) fine though, we don’t care what people think of us. We’re a good team so ideally, we’re going to take that to the ice and prove people wrong.”

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During last year’s tournament, PBCN finished second in pool B with a 2-1-1 record (W-L-T). Following round-robin play, the Stars met the Canoe Lake Young Guns in round one of the playoffs where they were held off the scoreboard and fell 1-0.

Fast forward to this year and some changes were made to the team, including a big last-minute switch between the pipes.

“It was a tough loss last year but we got a couple new imports for this year,” Morin said. “We couldn’t get our main goalie so we had to pick up another guy. I guess we’ll find out how she goes.”

The tournament began Thursday and a champion will be crowned on Sunday.

A full tournament draw as well as a schedule can be viewed below.

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logan.lehmann@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @lloganlehmann