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The community of Ste. Anne is gearing up to be the host community for this weekend's U13A2 Provincial Championship.
Coach for the Ste. Anne team, Jason Sharpe says he likes where his team is at heading into the weekend. "I'm excited to see if the kids can get to that higher level, that playoff level, as we like to call it. We did have a playoff game already this year and they did impress us. Right now, it's all on the kids. If they want to play, we have a really good chance to win this."
Sharpe breaks down which teams will be at the event. "We have seven teams coming, four of them from the Eastman region. Springfield grey, Springfield yellow, Mitchell and Ste. Anne. From other regions, we have Macdonald, Morden and Stonewall."
He says these games can be really entertaining. "Oh, they can get pretty intense, yup," Sharpe says with a chuckle. "We've had some pretty good battles with Mitchell, same with Springfield. We ran into Stonewall when we went to their tournament earlier this year. It was a battle to say the least, they actually scored with 1.9 seconds left in overtime to beat us."
At this age level, Sharpe says it's been great to work with this group building deeper skill sets in the game of hockey. "It's been so fun to watch these kids. The more we work with them in practice, we see the development in games. We have a really great coaching staff. All the hockey knowledge coming together, it's been great."
Having provincials in Ste. Anne is a nice boost for the community as well, according to Sharpe. "It brings lots of people to our arena and they get to experience a fun tournament. Not a lot of kids get to experience provincials. It's why we decided to host it. No one really stepped up during the year, so we put our heads together and decided to host. Now, it's time to see what we can do."
As the hosts, there's no added pressure, says the coach. "I don't feel any added pressure. We'll make sure the kids are ready and the host committee has done such a good job setting up. Everyone's ready to go."
The first game of the event will be Friday, 5:00 p.m. Ste. Anne's first game will be on Friday, at 6:45 p.m.