(Submitted photo/Dan Pihowich)

By Ben Tompkins

Heart, Hustle, and Team

Carrot River Loggers post historic season

Apr 4, 2023 | 4:21 PM

The Carrot River U11 Loggers team may have just had the best season the community has ever seen.

They went a perfect 16-0 in the regular season, before sweeping their way to the finals and winning the ‘A’ side league championship.

According to assistant coach Dan Pihowich, this is the first title in the team’s history, and possibly the only time a Carrot River team has ever gone undefeated in regular season play.

“It was a pretty special year,” he said. “As the playoffs progressed, there were a lot of people that you haven’t seen at the rink in a lot of years that came out to watch it. The last time I saw that many people in the rink was when the Thunder was in the provincial finals, so just the support from the community, it was pretty awesome.”

In previous years, the community had seen two teams, however, this year there was only one.

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The team combined the likes of Carrot River, Zenon Park, Shoal Lake, and Red Earth.

“A lot of these kids hadn’t played together for three or four years and some of these kids had never played together before or didn’t even know each other,” added Pihowich. “But, the kids gelled together fantastically, it was a great group of parents and coaches, and everybody had their role to get the most we could out of them.”

Carrot River’s only loss came in the finals to Porcupine Plain, however, the Loggers were able to overcome that, come together, and win in three games.

This played perfectly into their model… heart, hustle, and team.

“We challenged the kids and always kind of preached to them about a good practice resulting in a good effort at game time,” said head coach Henry Wiens. They bought into it, worked really hard and had fun at the same time.”

Another key spark in the team’s success was the support from one of the community’s ‘local celebrities.’

Current Saskatoon Blades forward and Carrot River native Jayden Wiens followed the club’s journey closely, eventually becoming one of their biggest fans.

“He went and got all the Blades players to wish the kids luck going into the playoffs there, a little message we showed them before the playoffs and it kind of lit a spark underneath them, and it was awesome,” explained Pihowich.

“Jayden also came back for the last game, surprised the boys in between the second and third periods, lots of smiles on their faces. It was really good to see him give back to Carrot River and I think he was pretty excited to be there and share it with the kids too.”

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter @BenTompkins_8