Last Thursday night, Elk Point Minor Hockey held the final banquet and pot luck supper. Everyone getting together and recognized their coaches and players is a great way to wind up the season. No provincial medals this year but our teams did compete very well in the league as well as the two teams; Atoms hosting and the Midgets going to provincials.

Peewee player Sam Rogal was named the Alex Kursh Memorial recipient. This award goes annual to a peewee aged player who has shown continued improvement in developing skills that contribute to becoming a valuable team member and displays a desire to learn and therefore is readily a coachable team member.

As we turn the page on another minor hockey season it’s time to look towards the ball diamonds. Hard to believe but it looks like it’s dry enough already to practise outside which is a wonderful bonus. No sense having any time off, nothing is better than getting right back at it.

 On Saturday I traveled to Bonnyville to take in the Reggie Rivard ball camp at the C2 with our grandson Phoenix. I was impressed on how much he has improved in this skills over last year for throwing catching and batting. Helping out at the camp was one of my former midget Sox ball players Tanner Corbiel.

Tanner was a terrific ball player and we won the gold medal in Tier II together the last year he played with the Sox in 2009. He hit a home run to lead off the final game against Sherwood Park and set the pace, the Sox never looked back from that point. That was 10 years ago now. Tanner and I talked about a possible reunion of the boys this summer.  That was our second provincial gold.

The very first provincial gold we won was in 2003, with Mark ‘the Marksman’ Letestu on the mound. In fact we did have a 10 year reunion in the summer of 2013 with those guys. The Sox have won quite a few more provincial medals now. Not only at midget, but at every level and will be out there competing again this year along with the female Pumas who, I believe may have applied to host the under 19 provincials this year. Wouldn’t that be exciting?!

This is an exciting time of year for sure with the hockey playoffs starting. The Oilers are out of course. But you could always cheer for my Leafs. They will need all the help they can get playing the big bad Bruins starting Thursday night. Do you Be-Leaf in miracles?  I do! 

 A big happy birthday going out to a former Sox ball player, who was only the second Sox player to hit a home run out of Bassett Field. He’s also our A. G. Ross Arena caretaker Brian ‘ Putts’ Poitras.