WINNIPEG — The Oak Park Raiders admit winning the Winnipeg High School Hockey League championship was tough.
But the bigger test will come this weekend.
“Coming off the city championship, a lot of guys will be gunning for us,” Raiders assistant coach Kevin Baylis said. “The boys know that. The big thing will be keeping them motivated.”
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Oak Park will look to become the third team in four years to capture both the city and provincial titles in the same year as the the Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association’s AAAA hockey championship begins Friday at St. James Civic Center. They’ll also try to be the first repeat champions in eight seasons.
Six teams from across the province will be divided into two pools for the round robin. The top two teams from each group advance to Saturday’s semifinal. A provincial champion will be crowned on Monday.
“Any team can win this,” Raiders defenceman Marc Legare said. “It’s going to be hard. You don’t know what to expect. We’ll go out as hard as we can and push harder than the other teams.”
Oak Park and the Vincent Massey Trojans are considered the favourites in this year’s tournament after playing each other in the Winnipeg High School Hockey League Division I final.
“It was a really tight series against Oak Park,” Trojans defenceman Eric Popoff said. “It sucked to lose but we gave it all we had. Oak Park is a really talented team. They have a lot of size. They play hard and rough. We have to be mentally and physically prepared for that.”
Players will also have to ready themselves for the Morden Thunder. The majority of the four city teams in the tournament haven’t faced the Thunder this year as Morden plays in a rural league.
“They’re always big, also strong and physical,” Baylis said. “Morden has a good record and they’ve beaten some pretty good teams this year.”
The Thunder enter the provincial championship as one of the underdogs. Morden has racked up a 39-8-3-1 record this season and will look to build off last year’s semifinal showing.
“I think we’re a little bit underestimated but there’s no reason why we can’t win games,” Thunder defenceman Jordan Blatz said. “There’s no reason why we can’t win this tournament.”
The St. Paul’s Crusaders are also considered a dark horse despite having won the Manitoba AAAA title five times.
“It’s new territory but something we look forward to,” Crusaders head coach Andrew Harder said. “This season has been fantastic. There’s been so many good teams. We’ll work hard and see where the chips may fall.”