By rdnewsNOW staff

Impressive Vipers season ends with provincial silver medal

Apr 3, 2018 | 3:16 PM

It was a heartbreaking end to a fantastic season for the Red Deer Vipers over the weekend.

Representing the Heritage Junior ‘B’ Hockey League at the Hockey Alberta Provincial Championships in Fort St. John, the Vipers slithered through the tournament before being stumped in the final.

Sunday afternoon, the Vipers fell 5-1 to the Wainwright Bisons 5-1, skating away with a silver medal.

Head Coach JD Morrical says winning the league title and then going to provincials took quite the physical toll on the team.

“The Heritage league I feel is the most competitive league in the province out of the four leagues. Our team was so tight-knit this year. They were like brothers and they played for each other, and that was really all you can ask for as a coach,” Morrical says.

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“They weren’t taking no for an answer, and at the end of the day, we were playing for the gold and ran out of steam. Wainwright was a really good hockey team.”

Morrical says it took about 20 minutes for the boys to stop feeling sorry for themselves and start feeling good about how impressive their season was.

To reach the provincial final, Red Deer defeated the Calgary Royals 4-1, the North Peace Navigators 5-4, and the Beverly Warriors 6-2 before finally advancing to the gold medal game with a 3-2 semi-finals victory over the Wetaskiwin Icemen.

The Vipers won 30 of 36 regular season games, besting any HJHL other team by 11 points in the standings. Following their bye in the first round of the league playoffs, Red Deer knocked out Mountainview in four games, Airdrie in six games, and then edged Coaldale 2-1 in the best-of-three league final.

Five Vipers finished in the top 20 of league scoring, with Mack Differenz leading the way with 31 goals and 36 assists in 35 games, including a league-leading 17 powerplay goals.