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Airdrie-Cochrane Avalanche kick off post-season with wild-card series against Northstars

According to Keller, the Avalanche's 2021-22 season has been characterized by a dramatic mid-season turnaround.

The Airdrie-Cochrane (AC) Avalanche will get their post-season run underway this evening, as they take on the Calgary Northstars in a wild-card series to see which of the bottom two teams in the Alberta Elite Hockey League (AEHL) U16 AAA south division will advance to the first round of the playoffs.

The Avalanche finished the 2021-22 regular season in eighth place of the nine-team south division, with a 14-19-1 record. The Northstars finished at the bottom of the standings with a 7-25-2 regular-season record. 

Kris Keller, the head coach of the Cochrane-based Avalanche, said AC's players will still have to be at their best if they hope to extend their post-season push and eliminate the Northstars from playoff contention.

He mentioned all four regular-season games against the Northstars this year were competitive battles. The two basement-dwellers' head-to-head record saw the Avalanche and the Northstars play each other four times throughout the regular season, splitting the spoils with two wins apiece. The Northstars outscored AC 14-12 across those four games.

“[The Northstars] didn’t have the best record this year but a lot of that was due to how brutal our division was,” he said. “That’s another thing that changes throughout the league – the Calgary teams are down to one team per quadrant, whereas before it was two, so they’re basically quite as good as they have been in the past. That made the division extremely competitive, which is a good thing.”

According to Keller, the Avalanche's 2021-22 campaign has been characterized by a dramatic mid-season turnaround. While AC struggled to amass wins in the early months of the AEHL season, the team has reversed its fortunes considerably since the turn of the new year.

“We ended up in the wild card series but as I explained to the guys, that was totally a result of our first half of the year,” Keller said. “Since basically the Christmas break on, I definitely don’t think we were a wild-card team. We were 4-14 before the break and then 11-5-1 since then. It was almost a complete turnaround.”

The head coach attributed the improved scores in the latter stages of the season to a better overall mentality and work ethic among the players in both practices and games. 

“We say this every year, but it comes back to the work the guys are willing to put into the team,” he said. “You get better, not just by playing games, but mostly through showing up every day – especially at practice.

“Showing up and really competing every practice and trying to get better is where that comes from. We have the right group and knew that going into the year. That’s why we made the selections we did. We felt we had those guys who were willing to show up every day and put that effort in. We’re seeing the results.”

The Avalanche head into their wild-card series after losing to the Northstars 4-3 on March 6, in the final game of the regular season. However, before that setback, AC had defeated the third-place Okotoks Oilers 3-1 on March 4. 

“Overall, we’re pretty happy with where our game is at going into the playoffs, and that’s all you can ask for,” Keller said.

Tonight's game gets underway at 6:45 p.m. at the Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre in Cochrane. Game two will be held at the Don Hartman Northeast Sportsplex in Calgary on Saturday, and if game three is necessary, it will be held in Cochrane on Sunday at 4:45 p.m.

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