An offensive outburst on the provincial stage is a pretty good path to victory.
The Okotoks Oilers had an undefeated run to a gold medal while scoring 34 goals in their five victories at the Hockey Alberta U13 Tier I Provincial Championships, held March 23-26 at the Calgary Flames Community Arenas.
Okotoks went into the competition as the Central Alberta Hockey League champions and carried their strong play onto the provincial stage.
In a harbinger of things to come in the final, Okotoks and the host Glenlake met in the opener with the Oilers skating to a 7-5 result. Brady Egroff and Jared Poulin scored twice with Lucas Livingstone, Liam Colbourne and Jacksen Cutforth also finding the back of the net.
Okotoks then doubled up Lloydminster 6-3 led by a Poulin hat trick.
In the pool play finale, the Oilers overpowered St. Albert by a 9-3 count. Ten skaters got on the scoresheet with Egroff posting a four-goal effort along with two-goal games from Zachary Robinson and Kade Murphy.
As the top-seed in Pool A, Okotoks faced off in the first of two semifinals and edged Lloydminster by a 5-2 scoreline on three unanswered goals from Livingstone, Murphy and Egroff.
The gold medal game saw Okotoks post the same 7-5 scoreline versus Glenlake.
The Oilers got contributions throughout the lineup with seven unique goal scorers — Cutforth, Livingstone, Egroff, Murphy, Poulin, Matias Hardy and Matthew Wyzykoski — with Jacob Derdall backstopping the team with 28 saves in the victory.
