And if results from their first two home openers are any indication, things are looking promising for the Caronport-based Canadian Sport School Hockey League program this season.
The Cougars saw their 16U Prep division crew take a 4-1 victory over the Notre Dame Hounds on Tuesday night before the U17 Prep team dropped a 5-4 shootout decision to the Hounds on Thursday.
Two solid results off the hop, and something PHA director Justin Simpkins hopes is just a sign of things to come -- even if it all comes with a whole lot of unknowns in the early going.
“It’s nice to get the season going again, just to see our teams play some actual regular-season games is exciting,” Simpkins said. “We’re encouraged about having four programs this season and I expect all of them to compete, but you don’t necessarily know what’s out there. You take a year off and you don’t know what each program had the year before and what they brought up in each age group and what to expect. But it’s good to be back and on the ice.”
The 2021-22 campaign will mark the first season PHA will field teams across all four CSSHL Prep divisions, with teams taking the ice in the two aforementioned age groups along with the U15 and U18 divisions.
It’s all part of the plan to continue to grow the program and now ideally see players stick with PHA through their entire high school careers.
“I think for the first year it’s really good and now that we have the ladder developed educationally and athletically for the student athletes, I think we’ll see a lot more retention and a lot more players moving up as they move up academically as well,” Simpkins said, pointing to one PHA standout who did just that when the Cougars were first taking shape.
“I think we had the privilege of seeing that the first year in the 2003 age group and the local Moose Jaw players we talk about, guys like Atley Calvert who are with the Moose Jaw Warriors now,” Simpkins said. “Atley started with us in Grade 9 and as a Grade 10 in his second year with the Elite 15s he ended up being listed by the Warriors… now we’d like to see something like that happen with players starting with us on the U15 team and working their way up.”
For the U16 Prep Cougars in their home opener, Dayton Reschny, Brady Magarrell, Bryson Aikens and Dylan Duzan all scored in their comfortable win over Notre Dame. Tyson Borschneck made 38 saves to earn the victory, the Cougars fired 46 at the Hounds.
The U17 Prep Cougars had a pair of goals from Macade Ochitwa to go along with single markers from Carson Haugan and Carter Skarbon -- the latter tying the game with five minutes remaining -- before Ochitwa scored their lone goal in the shootout. Silas Currie had 49 saves for PHA, who had 33 shots on Notre Dame.
The U15 Cougars play their first games on Oct. 15-16 in Notre Dame, the U18 Cougars host South Alberta Prep for a pair of games at Barkman Arena on Oct. 8 at 7 p.m. and Oct. 9 at 11 a.m.
It’s all leading up to another positive season and beyond the province’s first CSSHL members as they continue to build their program.
“I think it’s all about development and fun,” Simpkins said. “We have some excellent coaches, adding Sam Klassen (U15) and Nick Prkusic (U17) as head coaches, then three more assistant coaches as well have us looking strong developmentally. And with the new high-performance training centre next to the arena, that’s going to help us develop athletes even further. Then it’s just playing some games, and we’re all looking forward to a really fun season.”
For more information on Prairie Hockey Academy, be sure to check out their website at www.prairiehockey.ca and for the latest scores, see www.csshl.ca.
