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The Magrath Atom Chiefs Hockey team has spent the week celebrating a historic victory.
“It’s just an unbelievable thing that they were able to accomplish — first group of kids this age to ever accomplish that from Magrath,” said team coach Dustin Godlonton.
It was a weekend of highs for the team of nine- and 10-year-olds as they collected gold at the Atom D Provincial Championships in Elk Point on March 17.
Although they won four of their five games, defenceman Clay Christensen admits it was a tough tournament, but worth the fight.
“The games were probably a little harder than the ones we played to get to provincials,” Christensen said. “But they were pretty fun.”
Godlonton, who has coached the Chiefs for the last five years, said the team has worked hard to hone their skills and believes the win was well-deserved.
“To see it evolve, especially over the last year, they’ve really been able to come together. It’s been, I’m sure, satisfying as a parent,” Godlonton said.
“But it’s just been overwhelmingly unbelievable as a coach to be able to see them start to put all of the aspects of the game together.”
The players, who have spent the last five years training, agree that they’ve made some big improvements.
“I used to, when I was little, I used to not even know how to skate, and I used to just, like, scoot around,” said defenceman Cooper Godlonton. “I got better at D and skating faster, and skating backwards faster.”
This is only the second time in the town’s history that a team of any level has won a title at provincials, and many were excited to celebrate that. The Magrath elementary school acknowledged the team’s success during a morning assembly on Friday.
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