By Wendy Graves via Hockey Canada

The old saying goes “youth has been served.”

In the case of the Saskatoon Stars it may be necessary to modify that to “youth has served notice.”

The Stars are the youngest team at this year’s Esso Cup. In making its first appearance at Canada’s National Female Midget Championship, the team received big minutes – and significant contributions – from five Bantam-age players.

Last year the five were members of the Saskatoon Comets, a Bantam AA team that won a Midget AA league title.

Knowing who could be on the Stars roster in 2014-15 – both as first-year Midget players, as well as under-agers – convinced head coach Greg Slobodzian to shoot over from the Comets to the older AAA squad.

“I knew I had a really strong group of Bantams coming up with me and they were able to make that jump and know what my expectations were.”

In addition to icing the league’s top-scoring line – first-year Midget players Nara Elia, the league scoring champion; Sophia Shirley, the league’s most valuable player; and Julia Rongve – and getting impenetrable goaltending from 15-year-old Emma Johnson – who went 22-0 through the regular season and playoffs – a quintet of second-year Bantam players also left its mark.

*Forward Kianna Dietz has a nose for the net and thinks the game incredibly well, says Slobodzian. “It’s not easy being a power forward when you’re in a situation where the girls are older, but I can see her just being an absolute force in the next couple of years.”

*One of the most improved players on the team, forward Jordyn Gerlitz matured over the season into a player the coaching staff could depend on in any situation.

*“You’re not going to meet a more competitive, tenacious hockey player than Jordyn Holmes,” says Slobodzian, about his team’s smallest skater. “We’ve got two heartbeats on the team: one is our veteran Brittany Heuchert and the other one is Jordyn Holmes.”

*An absolute warrior is what Slobodzian calls Mackenna Parker, the youngest of the five. “She shoots the puck better than any girl I’ve seen her age.”

*Willow Slobodzian, the lone defencemen, reads the ice as well as any player out there, frequently finishing passes when it appeared a teammate couldn’t be found. “When she gets the puck on her stick you know something interesting is going to happen,” says the coach about his daughter.
 
With all this youth, no one anticipated back in September the team would win the prestigious holiday Mac’s Tournament in Calgary, Alta., go 24-3-1-0 to win the Saskatchewan Female Midget AAA Hockey League and sweep all three playoff series to advance to the Esso Cup.

Eight months ago the goals were far more modest: finish above .500, win a round in the playoffs, split with every team in the league and go the entire season without being shut out.

Mission accomplished on all four.

An early-season sweep of the Weyburn Gold Wings, last year’s Esso Cup champions, showed Slobodzian the Stars were ahead of schedule.

The players point to a number of factors to explain their success.

Holmes chalks it up to unselfishness. “We never tried to do it ourselves,” she says. “We were always passing to each other.”

Willow Slobodzian chalks it up to selfishness, sort of. “Our puck possession – we seem to always have the puck on our stick,” she says, before laughing, “which obviously helps.”

Winning was never the focus; skill development and in-game objectives were. Success just became a pleasant by-product of the improvements.

Although barely into their teens, these players are not going to be intimated by the big moments. In fact, history has shown they relish them.

Exhibit A: Double overtime of last year’s gold medal game in provincials, and Parker cycles the puck along the boards before passing off to Abby Shirley – now a first-year Midget age player on the Stars – who sends it to Holmes to finish it off.

Exhibit B: The gold medal game of the 2014 Mac’s Tournament, and Dietz – with an assist from Parker – scores the all-important first goal in a 4-2 over the Calgary Fire, the eventual regular season winner in the Alberta Major Midget Female Hockey League.

Exhibit C: Game 3 of the SFMAAAHL final against the Prince Albert Bears and the chance to clinch, and Dietz wins a battle in the corner to send a centering pass to Gerlitz for an easy tip-in and a 1-0 lead. Fifteen seconds later Dietz gets behind the defence off the face-off, picks up the puck behind the net and walks out front to complete the scoring.

The Stars have rolled four lines all years, with Parker and Holmes (with Abby Shirley) often together and Dietz and Gerlitz frequently joined by an affiliate player.  They get power play time. They kill penalties.

“They all fit right in all year and it’s really paid off,” says coach Slobodzian. He points to the Mac’s Tournament and how it’s similar to the Esso Cup in terms of how much hockey will be played. “Being able to roll four lines at the end of the tournament we still had jump, whereas the other teams were trying to compete against us with two lines.”