Mar 27, 2016 | Bneelin | 1668 views
Season Wrap-Up;
The Bantam Rep 2015-16 Season is now complete. This coach began the season with a number of modest goals for our group ... Goals against below 2.5, goals for approaching 3.0, total goals scored between 140 and 150, 20 wins and an overall .500 record !
My hope was to have a dangerous powerplay, a strong penalty kill and an effective down-low cycle complimenting an up-tempo attack and flow through the neutral zone. I believed that these were the key ingredients necessary to be competitive. Mrs Schoonjans agreed to take charge of off ice workouts to improve core and cardio. My ultimate hope was for a semi-final birth at International Silver Stick, in Forest, on Sunday. I made my pitch to the boys soon after try-outs and they bought in completely. The season was long and demanding, and we started slowly, but in the end our G.A. was 2.2, our G.F. was 2.75, we scored 155 goals, had 25 wins and finished 2 games above .500 ! Our P.P. was deadly, our P.K was awesome, our cycle was effective and opposition coaches praised the tempo and flow of our game. We swept the Silverstick round robin and came very close to winning the Sunday semi-final vs a team sporting an unbeaten regular season record. Mission accomplished!
My Hockey Rankings is a site which ranks minor hockey teams, in Ontario, using a mathematical formula based on wins/losses/stats/rankings of opponents/etc ... There's one category for AE/MD/BB/B/CC/C/DD ... All lumped together ... We finished the season ranked 58th out of 155 ... The only teams ahead of us who are "C" centers are Six Nations #17, Georgian Shores #31, Douro Dukes #39 and Belmont #57. We are therefore ranked 5th in the Province for Rep centers our size or smaller. Amazing !
Looking back on the season ... The greatest compliment we could ever be given came after our elimination from OMHA playoffs ... The opposition coach confided to me that he modified his own team's style of play to counteract all the things our team was now doing so well. He believed it was the only way his group could win the series! Those comments say more about this Predators team, and these kids, than any stats I could ever present. I hope that all of the Bantam Rep families are as proud of these young men as I am ! Coach Bob