The road to the Esso Cup runs through St. Albert with the defending national champions hosting the Final Frozen Four provincials.
The midget AAA Slash, 15-1-1 as the No. 1 team in the Alberta Female Hockey League, have home-ice advantage for the March 22 to 24 tournament to determine the Pacific Region national qualifier and the best-of-three series will also be staged by the Alberta champion.
“It will be such an amazing experience just knowing how important provincials is,” said defenceman Taylor Anker. “To be able to win it here would be awesome.”
The Slash have 13 league games remaining leading up to the four-team March 22 to 24 competition at Go Auto Arena.
“As we start to get closer and closer, we really start to put the focus on it and make sure everyone is aware of how important that weekend is going to be so working hard in practice and dryland is going to be super important for us,” Anker said. “Everything can come down to that one game whether we move on or not so that's where all of our hard work throughout the season is going to play out and that motivation is just going to be even higher as we go through the tournament.”
The spotlight will shine bright on the first team to repeat in the 10-year history of the Esso Cup.
“There is a lot of pressure on us. I know every team wants to beat us and we have to bring it our all every game. Every team is going to work hard against us. They want to win and they have that attitude against us so we have to push harder,” said right-winger Mackenzie Kordic. “Our goal is to get to Esso.”
Nationals are April 21 to 27 in Sudbury, Ont., and the Slash are bound and determined to continue the tradition of greatness after championship-winning seasons of 38-4-1 and 34-11-1.
“It’s the same values as before for us like putting the team first, which really helps us. We also have the hard work that it takes rather than relying on skill so as long as we keep doing our hard work and keep up with those kind of essentials then we can go all the way again,” said Anker, 17, a third-year Slash player along with Isabelle Lajoie, Makenna Schuttler, Madison Willan and netminder Brianna Sank.
“It’s pretty indescribable in terms of being on this team for three years. I’ve never been closer with a group of girls for that many consecutive years,” said Anker, a Grade 12 Archbishop Jordan High School student. “It’s just been a blast. I love coming to practice every day. It’s fun to be around everyone, which makes the experience here that much more better.
“And to be able to play with all these girls and watch the new players come up and have the same experiences is pretty nice to see.”
With nine returnees leading the way for the newcomers, the Slash are averaging a league-best 4.17 goals per game and a teeny-weeny 0.70 against with eight shutouts.
“It’s gone really smoothly. We’ve gelled really good as a team,” said Anker, who is committed to the Alberta Pandas. ”Obviously the most important part is to keep that record up and make sure you have all the momentum going into provincials.”
The Slash are winners of eight straight after dropping a 2-1 overtime decision to the second-place Lloydminster Steelers (15-4-1) Oct. 28 in the Border City.
The only loss in regulation time was 2-0 to Lloydminster in the Oct. 13 home opener after four wins to kick off the season.
“We started off really strong and we’ve improved quite a bit, too,” Kordic said. “Heading into the new year we’re going to start to make some improvements too with the team, just trying to make everyone kind of pull more together and more chemistry.”
Kordic ranks fourth in team scoring with 17 points and is tied for second in goals in the AFHL with 13.
“Obviously points are always nice,” said the linemate of Lajoie and Schuttler. “But I’ve been improving, too. My positional play has got a lot better just supporting the puck and getting on the defensive side.”
Kordic, 17, joined the Slash after two seasons with the Devon-based Northern Alberta X-Treme in the Canadian Sport School Hockey League after playing on boys’ teams prior to midget and the last one was bantam AA with the Canadian Athletic Club.
“I didn’t know these girls before that well but I feel like we’ve been getting closer together so obviously that means working better with the puck as a team,” said Kordic, a Grade 12 St. Francis Xavier High School student played who is committed to the UBC Thunderbirds.
Kordic’s hockey bloodlines include her father, Dan, who played 197 NHL games for the Philadelphia Flyers (4-8-12 and 584 PIM) and is the assistant coach of the Kamloops Blazers in the Western Hockey League (Lajoie’s dad, Serge, is the head coach) and her uncle John played 244 games with four NHL teams (17-18-35 and 997 PIM).
