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Top 10 reasons why you should back your Cochrane Generals

Everybody loves a winner. Except, maybe, Cochrane.

Everybody loves a winner.

Except, maybe, Cochrane.

How else can you explain the town’s top-ranked Heritage Junior Hockey League (HJHL) team playing a season in front of disappointingly sparse home crowds?

Cochrane’s team has quietly become the HJHL’s best this season, serving notice to teams from Ponoka to Coaldale. The Cochrane Generals just posted their best regular-season record in the team’s history (29-5-4) to claim top spot in the HJHL’s 38-game regular season and are gearing up for their march through the playoffs.

If that isn’t reason enough (and it should be in any “hockey” town) to fill the rink for Gens games, here’s a helpful Top-10 list pointing the way to the doors through which the best hockey in Cochrane, and in the HJHL, can be viewed live:

10) $5. The price of a ticket for the game. When’s the last time $5 bought you anything other than a half-hour’s worth of parking in the city? Students are $3, and seniors and kids under 12 are FREE! (gratis, no charge, $0).

9) Pat’s Palate Pleasers. There’s arena food, and then there’s the fine cuisine served up by Pat’s at Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre (SLSFSC). No comparison.

8) The rink. SLSFSC Totem 1 is a bright, comfortable space with great sight lines for watching the skill and grit of junior B hockey come to life. If you’ve been to other HJHL barns, you know how much better we have it here.

7) History. You can track the Gens as far back as the late 1980s, when the team had its own bus, played in the Central Alberta Junior B Hockey League and current sniper Talus Hume’s dad, Wally, captained the team.

6) Community commitment. After every home game, tired and sore Gens open the dressing room door to young Cochrane Minor Hockey players seeking autographs and insight on what it’s like to play hockey at a high level. Wide-eyed youngsters leave the room with wide smiles, having been granted audience with their local hockey heroes. The team also participates in annual community initiatives like the outhouse races, Movember, breast-cancer awareness, food bank and other fundraisers.

5) Leadership. In third-year head coach Evan McFeeters and fourth-year general manager Jacqueline Hurlbert, you have the most dynamic 1-2 leadership punch in the league. You won’t have much longer to observe the handiwork of these two 20-somethings because they’ll be moving up the ladder to higher hockey jurisdictions. It won’t be long before teams up the line come calling for the skills offered by these two.

4) Local talent. Fifteen players listed on the Gens current roster are Cochrane Minor Hockey products, and it’s not unusual to see ex-Generals giving back to minor hockey. Generals graduates like Tyson Soloski, Kris Keller, Chris Hugo and Sam Yetman (to name a few) are coaching in the local minor hockey ranks right now.

3) The defence. Austin Keller, Craig Packard, Logan Brown, Dustin Ponath, Noah Bigland, Matt Kaczur, Tyler Kinnon and Brett Hamer are the best defensive group in the league and give goalies Mack Chalmers and Ty Robinson a chance to shine every night.

2) The offence. Generals average five goals a game. That’s two goals more per game than the Dallas Stars, the National Hockey League’s highest-scoring team.

1) This is a non-profit, community-run group that does this for the game and for Cochrane, not for money. So get out there and show this local winner the love it deserves. The Cochrane Generals have an opening-round playoff bye, giving you adequate time to pen their playoff run into your calendar. With the bye, Generals wait for the winner of the Coaldale/High River series which ends Feb. 13 at the latest.




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