The St. Albert Raiders resume their quest for a provincial championship this weekend in the Alberta Midget AAA Hockey League.
Today at 1:15 p.m. the Raiders host the Sherwood Park Kings at Akinsdale Arena and Sunday they play the KC Pats at 11:45 a.m. at Bill Hunter Arena.
"We're pretty excited to show everyone what we're going to do this year," said centre Sebastian Auray.
Last season the Raiders became the sixth St. Albert team and the first since 1998 to win the Joe Cherrington Memorial Trophy as the north division playoff winners.
In the best-of-five provincial final the Raiders lost three straight to the Red Deer Rebels, the eventual Telus Cup national champions.
The last St. Albert team to win provincials was the 1990 Raiders.
In the 2012 playoffs the Raiders finished 6-5 after placing second in the north at 21-9-4.
"We had a good season and we're looking to build on it this year," Auray said. "We have an all-around good team. We don't have any real weak spots. It's a good group of guys."
The Raiders are carrying 25 players, including three netminders. Teams have to finalize their rosters before the fifth game of the season. A handful of potential Raiders are either hurt or at junior camps.
"Some of the teams are waiting until after the Showcase Weekend for the AJHL [this weekend in Spruce Grove] to determine whether they send them back," said head coach Sandro Pisani. "We'll have a good indication after the weekend who is coming back and who is not, so at that point we'll be able to kind of finalize our roster."
The only returning players are Auray and forwards Kyler Hehn and Tyler Mrkonjic.
"Obviously with only three returning players the last couple of weeks has been a lot of teaching, a lot of system play and positional play," Pisani said. "We believe we're getting better every day so we're looking forward to the weekend."
The last exhibition game for the Raiders was a 2-0 win over the Leduc Oil Kings last weekend. Pat Gora posted the shutout as the Raiders finished the pre-season at 3-1-2.
"We had a lot of good pre-season games. We finished games really strong. We played hard," Auray said. "There was lots of teaching going on and the new guys are learning. The returning guys are acting as leaders and helping them out, showing them the ropes and keeping everyone positive."
Auray, 17, skates into his second season with the Raiders after graduating from the bantam AAA Sabres to the St. Albert Minor Midget 15 Flyers.
"It's a tough adjustment coming from midget 15. I was more of a battle type player, a PK (penalty killer) type player, and it helped me out a lot. I'm more of a complete player now. Sandro and [assistant coach Umberto] Fiorillo do a great job with the players here. They help everyone out," said the Grade 12 student at St. Albert Catholic High School.
Auray notched four goals and nine assists in 32 games and added two assists in 10 playoff games.
"My personal goal is just to have a good year and keep building from last year," he said. "I don't want to set any numbers for myself because it's a team game but just have a good year and compete hard and play hard and help the team win."
Oil Kings' draft pick
Among the promising newcomers looking to stick with the Raiders is netminder Pat Dea.
"I feel I've been playing well so I've just got to keep going. Hopefully I can crack the squad," said Dea.
The first goalie taken in the 2012 Western Hockey League bantam draft was reassigned by the Edmonton Oil Kings to the Raiders earlier this month.
"They're a top-notch organization and just being with them and learning how they treat themselves like pros really helped me coming back here," Dea said. "I've really got to work hard to get to that level and just keep practicing hard and win games."
The Oil Kings drafted Dea with the 22nd overall pick. The top netminder in the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League's north conference posted a 12-6-3 record, 2.96 GAA and .920 save percentage in 1,237 minutes for the Sabres.
"It was a real exciting day for my family. It was a really cool experience to have the Oil Kings draft me," said the Grade 10 St. Albert High student.
Dea's debut with the defending WHL champions ended with in an 8-2 loss to the Swift Current Broncos at the Oil Kings' sixth annual pre-season invitational tournament at Northstar Hyundai Arena. He stopped 12 of 20 shots.
"It was a surreal experience playing here at home," he said. "Putting on the jersey for the first time and to get to play a game was a pretty cool experience. Unfortunately it didn't go the way I hoped but it was still a good learning experience."
Dea, 15, will rely on Dustin Schwartz, the Oil Kings' goaltender coach, for guidance this season.
"He gave me some pointers to work on and some sheets of paper that I can write down how my goals went in. I can grade them from an A, a goal being like unstoppable, or a D, a bad goal that I should've had. That helps a lot," he said. "They also do videos of games and I got to see where I went wrong [against Swift Current]. I feel like I could've definitely had a lot of the goals that went by me in that game."
