Wolverines win big

West Kildonan

West Kildonan Collegiate has a new championship banner to hang in its halls.

On March 12, the West Kildonan Wolverines won the Winnipeg High School Hockey League’s Price Division championship, securing a two games to one series victory over the Collège Lorette Collegiate Scorpions.

“It went well,” said volunteer coach Jamie Leach. “We had pretty good buy-in from most everybody. We just kind of caught fire in the playoffs, winning the first five games. We had an unbelievable final. The boys played great. That all comes from the buy-in all year long.”

The Wolverines struck first in the best-of-three final, winning the opening game 3-2 over Lorette at the Seven Oaks Sportsplex on March 9. The Scorpions evened the series with a 4-2 win on March 11 to force a deciding game the next day. In the deciding match, West K proved victorious, earning a 3-2 win to bring the championship banner home.

“Our team was probably stronger on the forward side than defensive,” Leach said. “In the playoffs, our goaltender (O’Shea Ramos) played excellent. We were a team that decided to play defence first to create offence. We wanted to keep control of the puck as much as possible, especially in the offensive zone.”

Ramos played all seven playoff games for West K, stopping 180 shots for a 0.92 save percentage and maintaining a 2.29 goals against average.

A former NHL player whose son attends West Kildonan Collegiate, Leach (who is also the son of legendary Philadelphia Flyer Reggie Leach) volunteered to coach the team when last year’s coach, Jesse Goertzen, was unable to do so this season owing to scheduling conflicts. A call was put out to the community for volunteers, and Leach and a pair of other parents, Delmar Giesbrecht and Matt Banera, stepped up. (Goertzen was able to manage the team.)

West Kildonan finished the regular season in fourth place of the WHSHL’s third-tier division, with a 17-4-3 record, good for 52 points.

“We had to change a bit of the culture,” Leach said. “We wanted to be more of a disciplined team this year, to stay out of the box. We worked on it, and we were successful. At one point, we we were the least-penalized team in the league, which we were very proud of. There were some growing pains, but it worked.”

To get there, Leach said the team dedicated more time and effort to working on fundamentals in practice.

“One thing they did, they increased their practice level throughout the year,” he said. “Our practice habits weren’t where they should have been, but they got better throughout the season. As we went along, we played more of a team game. Guys realized that to be successful, we needed to play a certain way. The playoffs, it all came together. It was great to see.”