The Airdrie City View’s top 10 sports stories of 2022

Native soccer groups’ accomplishments

A number of Airdrie soccer groups loved record-setting seasons in 2022.

On the senior males’s degree, the Airdrie Irish loved a franchise-best document within the Alberta Soccer League (AFL). As soon as the playoffs have been underway, the Irish won their first two games to make it to the league championship recreation in August.

Whereas the championship recreation ultimately ended with a disappointing 55-0 defeat to the dominant Chilly Lake Fighter Jets, the Irish gamers may nonetheless maintain their heads excessive after a unbelievable total marketing campaign that noticed Airdrie produce a 6-2-1 total document. For the second 12 months in a row, the Irish acquired the AFL’s franchise of the 12 months accolade.

On the high-school degree, the George McDougall Mustangs and W.H. Croxford Cavaliers additionally loved some unbelievable achievements in 2022. The Mustangs earned their first Rocky View Sports activities Affiliation (RVSA) title since 2014 by upsetting the top-seeded Cochrane Cobras within the division championship recreation in late October. In consequence, the Mustangs have been ranked second within the province amongst Tier II groups and 10th in Canada amongst small-school high-school soccer groups by Chat Soccer Canada.

Sadly, George McDougall’s quest to compete for a provincial banner ended with a 48-15 loss to the Holy Trinity Academy Knights (the top-ranked small-school soccer staff in Canada) within the subsequent Tier II south qualifying recreation.

The W.H. Croxford Cavaliers, in the meantime, produced their best-ever document in 2022. Boasting a senior-heavy roster, the Cavaliers completed third within the RVSA with an 8-2 document – including a six-game win streak to start the season – and spent many of the season ranked amongst Alberta’s high 5 Tier II groups.

As for Airdrie’s minor soccer groups, the peewee, bantam, and midget Airdrie squads all made it to their respective league championship games this 12 months. Within the fall, the bantam Raiders and peewee Storm every set program firsts by having fun with unbeaten common seasons.

AAA hockey groups’ playoff runs

Airdrie’s two AAA hockey groups have been each extremely aggressive of their respective divisions of the Alberta Elite Hockey League (AEHL) in 2022.

The U15 Xtreme were the top south division team within the AEHL’s U15 league, ending with a 30-4-0 regular-season document. The Xtreme maintained that momentum within the post-season by sweeping the Lethbridge Golden Hawks in two video games after which overcoming the Calgary Bisons of their best-of-three collection. The Xtreme’s post-season then culminated with a fourth-place finish on the U15 AAA provincial championship event.

The Xtreme’s particular person energy was acknowledged by three players hearing their names called within the Western Hockey League’s 2022 bantam draft. Captain Wyatt Pisarczyk was chosen by the Calgary Hitmen, goaltender Corbin Sandermann was picked by the Everett Silvertips, and goaltender Cruz Chase was drafted by the Regina Pats.

On the U18 AAA degree, the Airdrie CFR Chemical compounds Bisons additionally loved an incredible season in 2022, qualifying for the AEHL playoffs for the primary time for the reason that franchise relocated to Airdrie in 2016. The Bisons completed fifth within the common season to guide their berth within the post-season.

As soon as within the playoffs, the Bisons produced some late drama of their series-deciding recreation towards the Calgary Royals. Down by three within the third interval, Airdrie came back with three unanswered late goals to tie the sport and pressure time beyond regulation. Then, defenseman Carsyn Crawford sniped a bar-down winner within the further stanza to ship the Bisons to the second spherical.

Sadly for the Bisons, their Cinderella playoff run got here to a fast shut within the ensuing spherical towards the top-seeded Calgary Flames, who swept the best-of-three collection 2-0.

Varied college commitments

A excessive variety of Airdrie student-athletes inked their athletic futures on the post-secondary degree in 2022.

W.H. Croxford volleyball participant Daisy Olsen was one such participant. After a robust senior season with the Cavaliers in 2021, Olsen committed to the University of Calgary Dinos in January, with whom she is presently within the midst of her first 12 months of USPORTS competitors.

Olsen’s Croxford colleague Mykena Walker additionally dedicated her future to the Dinos in 2022, as a member of the U of C’s ladies’s soccer staff. In her first 12 months of college soccer, Walker started in all 17 of the Dinos’ games this fall, in a marketing campaign that noticed the squad progress all the best way to nationals after a third-place end within the Canada West convention.

They weren’t the one Croxford college students to signal for college athletics applications. In soccer, Cavaliers senior defensive lineman Rhaheem Khalil committed to the RisePEI-based St. Mary’s University Huskies. In discipline lacrosse, Croxford grad Kiara Crawford signed her letter of intent for the College of Montobello in Alabama.

Among the many most personally inspiring native tales of an Airdrie athlete committing to a post-secondary athletics program in 2022 was basketball player Ava Regier. The then-senior at George McDougall Excessive College inked her dedication to the MacEwan College Griffins ladies’s basketball staff in January. That was regardless of Regier lacking her total senior season of high-school basketball because of a severe knee harm, whereas her sophomore and junior seasons have been hampered or cancelled altogether because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

One other George McDougall senior who inked her LOI was volleyball participant Isabella Stothart, who committed her post-secondary future to the Trinity Western College Spartans in Langdley, B.C.

Locals compete at Canada Summer season Video games

A 12 months after being postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canada Summer season Video games have been held for the primary time since 2017 final summer season. It meant a couple of of Airdrie’s high U20 athletes have been Ontario-bound in August to compete on the two-week multi-sporting extravaganza in Niagara, Ont., the place they joined hundreds of Canada’s most promising junior athletes in a wide range of totally different sports activities.

Triathlete Sophia Howell was one of Airdrie’s headline-makers on the Video games, as she introduced residence a bronze and silver medal from Niagara. Howell was additionally one in all Workforce Alberta’s two banner-carriers on the opening ceremony.

Different native medalists included Daisy Olsen in girls’ volleyball (silver), Tana Layton in women’ basketball (gold), and Sienna MacDonald in track-and-field (bronze within the ladies’s 100-metre (m) hurdles, silver within the 4x100m relay, and bronze within the lengthy leap).

“I really feel actually good about it, actually,” Olsen stated of the expertise, upon her return residence. “It is a actually good achievement – being second in Canada is spectacular. I beloved the staff and thought it was superior to have that have. I undoubtedly want I may do it once more.”

Airdrie was additionally represented on the Canada Summer season Video games by para-athlete Saheed Alawiye, who completed eleventh and eighth in his two wheelchair races, and soccer participant Mykena Walker, who completed fourth as a member of Workforce Alberta’s women’ soccer staff.

Alberta ended the Video games fourth within the medal standings, with 111 medals in complete. These included 35 gold, 33 silver, and 43 bronze. 

Aaron Sluchinski competes at Tim Horton’s Brier

Airdrie roller Aaron Sluchinski achieved a life-long dream in 2022, competing for the first time in his career on the fabled Tim Horton’s Brier – the nationwide males’s curling championship – in Lethbridge.

Sluchinski featured because the alternate for Workforce Bottcher, who completed the Brier in third place, simply lacking out on the ultimate by dropping to Workforce Gushue. Workforce Bottcher posted a 9-3 document all through the event.

The Airdrie roller had the chance to play in three ends in Workforce Bottcher’s one-sided wins over groups from Prince Edward Island and Yukon through the 10-day event. Sluchinski threw two rocks in Workforce Bottcher’s 11-4 win towards Workforce Smith from Prince Edward Island and he threw 4 rocks within the 10-4 win over Workforce Scoffin, who represented Yukon.

Whereas he didn’t get to play very a lot, Sluchinski famous it was a useful studying expertise to see how his short-term teammates Brendan Bottcher, Patrick Janssen, and Brad Thiessen ready for his or her matches. 

The Brier was a transparent spotlight, however Sluchinski’s 2022 season additionally noticed him reclaim his second consecutive mixed-doubles provincial championship alongside Calgary’s Brittany Tran in February. The pair recorded a 7-2 document all through the bonspiel, their two defeats coming by the hands of Workforce Kayla Skrlik and Gregg Hamilton, and Workforce Michael Lambert and Krysta Hilker.

After dropping two of their opening 4 matches, Sluchinski and Tran rallied again to win their ultimate 5 attracts.

Abygale Reeve makes Workforce Canada BMX

Airdrie’s achieved BMX racer Abygale Reeve didn’t let the COVID-19 pandemic hinder her burgeoning profession within the high-adrenaline sport.

After transferring to Arizona amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 so she may proceed to coach for and compete in worldwide competitions, Reeve’s 2022 noticed the 16-year-old student-athlete successfully try out for Canada’s BMX team and develop into the nationwide program’s youngest member.

“I’m tremendous enthusiastic about it as a result of it’s been a aim of mine for about three years now,” she stated in March. “Simply to have the ability to placed on the Canadian jersey and put on the leaf is an enormous accomplishment for me, and to characterize myself and Canada on the highest degree.”

As soon as on Workforce Canada, Reeve gained useful expertise by racing at two European competitions over the summer season, within the Netherlands and France.

“I obtained to expertise what it’s prefer to race towards world class women, and it was an excellent journey for expertise,” Reeve stated.

She adopted up these competitions by winning her 10th consecutive provincial BMX title in early September through the 2022 Alberta BMX provincial championships in Stony Plain.

After two years of jet-setting and distance-schooling to accommodate her hectic racing schedule, Reeve lastly noticed some normalcy return to her life in 2022. She’s again to learning at Bert Church Excessive College as she prepares for the 2023 BMX season subsequent spring.

Sienna MacDonald wins nationwide heptathlon

Sienna MacDonald continued to be one of many Airdrie Metropolis View’s most written-about athletes this 12 months, with one other slate of headline-making accomplishments in 2022.

The College of Calgary Dinos monitor athlete and George McDougall Excessive College alumna achieved a career highlight in June by profitable gold within the ladies’s heptathlon on the Nationwide Canadian Monitor and Discipline championships, in Langley B.C. Competing in seven disciplines from June 22 to 26, MacDonald produced a personal-best (PB) rating of 5,643 factors, overcoming her closest challengers Madisson Lawrence of Winnipeg, Man. and Maude Léveillé of Sherbrooke, Que. 

“This is without doubt one of the greatest meets I’ve ever competed at and clearly profitable a championship title – particularly at 19 – is superb,” she stated. “Not lots of people can say they’ve one.”

The U of C student-athlete’s 2022 additionally noticed MacDonald win four out of five events to secure the gold medal within the ladies’s pentathlon on the Canada West track-and-field championships in Winnipeg in March. And regardless of drained legs after competing within the pentathlon, she went on to safe the silver medal within the ladies’s 60-metre hurdles, with a PB of 8.48 seconds within the ultimate. She capped off the western convention meet with a 3rd podium placement by ending second within the ladies’s long-jump, because of a distance of 5.63 metres.

Lower than two weeks later, MacDonald battled harm to assert sixth within the ladies’s pentathlon and seventh within the 60-m hurdles on the USPORTS nationwide championships in Saint John, N.B.

Nolan Oakey

Nolan Oakey completed his junior lacrosse profession off with a bang in 2022.

The W.H. Croxford Excessive College alumnus featured because the Rockyview Silvertips junior B staff’s captain within the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League (RMLL) this summer season.

Regardless of lacking the primary 4 video games of the season, the Airdrie native wasted no time upon his return to the junior B squad, rocketing to the highest of the league’s scoring charts and setting a single-season points record for the Cochrane-based staff.

“I clearly felt fairly excited I had the chance to do this,” the 20-year-old stated. “Clearly, it wasn’t simply me. It was my coaches and my teammates who helped me get there – and my dad and mom for dragging me to all these practices to provide me the chance to get the place I’m right this moment.

“It’s fairly simple to place some factors up on the board when our staff is taking part in like that.”

Averaging practically seven factors per recreation, Oakey completed the season with over a century of factors for the Silvertips, courtesy of his 52 objectives and 55 assists. Rockyview’s earlier document for factors garnered in a single 12 months was set in 2006 by Joel Henry, who collected 93 factors that summer season. 

With Oakey as captain, the Silvertips completed the 2022 common season in first place of the RMLL’s central division with a 13-7 document. Oakey then led the Silvertips to a franchise-best fourth-place finish on the Larry Bishop Memorial Cup (the junior B provincial championship event).

Josh Davies chosen in NHL draft

It’s each aggressive hockey participant’s ambition to listen to their identify known as within the NHL Tremendous Draft – and Airdrie’s Josh Davies obtained to expertise that once-in-a-lifetime dream on July 7, when the Florida Panthers selected him within the sixth spherical because the 187th choose.

“Like everybody says, it was a bit surreal,” the 18-year-old ahead informed the Airdrie Metropolis View shortly after his choice. “It would not actually sink in till a pair days after. For myself, it has been a long-term aim of mine. Now that it is right here, it is unbelievable for myself and my household. I am simply glad to be a Florida Panther, and I look ahead to the long run and the exhausting work to come back.”

Davies’ choice within the NHL draft adopted a trip to Germany last summer, the place he performed three video games for Canada’s U18 boys’ staff on the IIHF World Championships. Canada sadly under-performed on the annual event, making it to the quarterfinals earlier than being eradicated from medal competition by Finland in time beyond regulation. Davies recorded an help on the event.

“I believe placing on that crest on the finish of the day, it’s the Maple Leaf – very restricted gamers get to put on that crest,” he stated. “Simply placing on that crest and representing my nation was the spotlight.”

The 2021-22 season additionally noticed Davies play his first full 12 months within the Western Hockey League as a member of the Swift Present Broncos. In his debut season within the main junior league, Davies logged 64 video games and recorded 36 factors.

Zone 2 ringette staff wins nationals

Airdrie’s high minor ringette gamers are inclined to play for the regional Zone 2 AA (Large Nation) affiliation, whose U16AA staff capped off the 2021-22 season with a program-first national gold medal in April.

Competing in Calgary in entrance of greater than 4,000 followers watching both in-person or through Ringette Canada’s on-line stream, the U16AA squad overcame a staff from New Brunswick 7-6 in time beyond regulation to win Zone 2’s first ever nationwide championship. The staff’s highway to the ultimate was paved with wins towards groups from Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Calgary.

“It was only a nice expertise,” stated Wes Clark, the pinnacle coach of Zone 2’s U16AA staff. “It was properly organized and all of the volunteers put in tons of effort and made it a singular expertise for the ladies – one they’re going to keep in mind for the remainder of their lives.”

The gold-medal recreation was a becoming finale, as each Zone 2 and New Brunswick have been unbeaten heading into it. Whereas Zone 2 took a commanding 5-0 lead within the first two intervals, the New Brunswick staff was in a position to claw their approach again into the competition and pressure time beyond regulation. Zone 2 finally sniped the OT winner to safe the affiliation’s first nationwide title.

Clark credited the Zone 2 gamers’ potential to remain mentally sharp all through the event, and stated profitable the championship was a well-deserved group effort.

As a testomony to the squad’s particular person expertise, three Zone 2 gamers – together with Airdrie’s Madi Rice – have been named to the event’s all-star staff.