Outlaws picking up right where they left off

Last season, because of the fire, they had to play their “home” games out of Unity, which Keller admits wasn’t easy.

“It was more tough for the stuff that you don’t see on the ice,” he said. “Hauling your equipment home every night, hauling all of our sticks and our stuff that you’d normally have in your dressing room to the rink every game and every practice [wasn’t easy.] And then of course for the fans, having to drive 20 minutes for every game.

“It wears on everybody.”

And yet, on the ice, last season went pretty much picture perfect.

Wilkie finished the regular season with a 17-1 record and went on to defeat Biggar in the SWHL finals three games to two. Then, they went on to win the ‘B’ provincial title.

Those two championships last season – one league title and one provincial title – were the sixth and seventh trophies for the club in the past four seasons.

“It’s been a nice little run here for the guys,” Keller said.

This year, Wilkie will move up to the ‘A’ division for provincials.

In senior hockey, you don’t have to win a league title to qualify for provincials. Instead, most SWHL teams enter and they are tiered based on population – sort of.

“Essentially it’s determined by population. So a town like Wilkie, we can go anything but ‘D’,” Keller said, explaining Wilkie is too big for that division ‘D’s population parameters. “It’s a little bit convoluted because…you get three imports for ‘B’, ‘C’, [and] ‘D’ [division], so if they’re an import you don’t use their population and then with ‘A’ you have unlimited imports so it’s a little bit convoluted. But essentially, it’s kind of judged by the size of the town.”

With Wilkie set to head to division ‘A’, Keller knows it will be a significant step up, mostly because of the unlimited import rule.

“We’re stepping up a weight category if you will,” he said. “The two years we went ‘C’ I think it was pretty similar to ‘B’, to be honest with you. Going to ‘A’ is going to be a big jump because as soon as you go to ‘A’, there’s no limit on imports. You can have as many imports as you want, [and] there’s no limit on population, so it’s pretty much a free for all.”

But Keller and the rest of the Outlaws are certainly excited.

Not only are they 8-0 so far this season, but they are blowing out their opponents most nights. They have 69 goals for in just eight games (more than eight per game), and just 20 against.

It helps that the team is returning almost their entire roster, but Keller also believes a few new pieces have helped, specifically his little brother Ryne Keller (a former North Star like brother Derek), forward Barrett Penner (another former North Star who only played in three games for Wilkie last season) and defenceman Reece Fenrich (a former AAA Star).

“I think we’ve increased our depth,” Keller said. “We’ve added some youth, some enthusiasm I guess you could say, into the dressing room and we’ve just kind of [had a] little bit of a rejuvenation too with being back in the rink and of course going ‘A’ this year, I think it’s got a little bit of energy into the squad.”

Nathan Kanter is battlefordsNOW’s sports reporter and voice of the Battlefords North Stars. He can be reached at Nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11

by Nathan Kanter

Outlaws picking up right where they left off

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