An Alberta junior hockey team has quite a connection to our region.
The Heritage Junior Hockey League's Medicine Hat Cubs started this season with seven players on their roster from Southwest Saskatchewan.
"We're so close to the Saskatchewan border" said Cubs Coach/GM Randy Wong. "That south part of Saskatchewan is really untapped. Farm kids make good hockey players. We've always relied on those guys to help with numbers in our program. It gives us good depth and it gives those guys a chance to play pretty close to home."
Maple Creek's Denyn Smith. Rhett Franklin of Cadillac, Keynan Cairns of Shaunavon, Tash Armstrong and Mason Osinski of Eastend, and Seth Gryde of Frontier are still suiting up the Cubs ten games into the season.
"We've got a lot of guys that know each other so it's easy to fit in," Smith said. "Hard working Sasky boys!"
A number of the Cubs played U18 hockey in Swift Current. Osinski played for the Home Hardware Legionnaires last season, Smith played season for both the U18 AA and AAA programs in Swift Current and Cairns played 41 games for the U18 AA Broncos before his junior years.
"I played with a lot of the guys from Sask here," Cairns said. "We gel together pretty good. It's a good group. I heard a lot of good things about the organization and decided to go with the Cubs. Great city, great group of people, great fans... it's awesome here."
While the HJHL is classified as a Junior B league, the Cubs do move players up to higher levels of junior hockey and to college programs.
"You see those guys from last year and two years ago moving on and playing ACHA and in the US," Cairns said. "It's always an option to look forward to."
The Cubs have been near the top of the HJHL consistently and made it to the final four in each of the last two seasons. They're trying to take the next step this season.
"The main goal is to win the finals," Smith said. "Just become a better player and person off the ice."
Medicine Hat is 8-2 and tied with Okotoks for the top spot in the HJHL South Division. The Cubs visit the Wheatland Kings on Saturday before hosting Red Deer on Sunday.