(rdnewsNOW/Sheldon Spackman)

By Sheldon Spackman

Hosting 2022 AJHL Showcase

Bulldogs looking to build on successful inaugural season

Sep 10, 2022 | 10:00 AM

The puck will soon drop on a new season for the Alberta Junior Hockey League’s Blackfalds Bulldogs and the club is anticipating some great success in its second season of operation.

With the team’s pre-season wrapping up against the Drayton Valley Thunder Friday, the Bulldogs are set to begin their regular season in Olds against the Grizzlys on Sept. 16, 2022, at 7:00 p.m..

Looking back at the team’s inaugural season in 2021-2022, Adam West, Assistant General Manager, says the organization felt very good about what they were able to accomplish.

“We started off with a young team, young roster, and we didn’t even get to start the season in our home building. We played our first 20-ish games on the road and we were kind of nomadic as far as Junior A teams go,” he recalls. “We started out in Lacombe and then we moved over to the Red Deer College and then we were over into Servus for a bit or into the old rink in Blackfalds. So going through all of that, getting our feet wet in the league and kind of building up the whole team from scratch and throughout the entire season, looking at it from the back end, all we did the entire year was improve.”

West cites improvements made to their game day operations, productions from an entertainment and fan perspective, and to the quality of the team itself, including its record.

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“Each 10-game segment we got better as we went, and we sat down right before playoffs and put it together. From January 1^st to the end of the season, the only team in our division who had a better record was Brooks,” he points out. “And the only other team who had a better record than us besides Brooks, was Spruce Grove, the two teams that made it to the AJHL final last year.”

This season, West says the organization is anticipating a very competitive team on the ice right from the get-go.

“Starting up front with our forward group, this is a deep group,” he explains. “We’ve got four, arguably five lines that we figure are all Junior A capable lines that can produce. The way we want to play is we want to roll four lines and come at teams in waves and keep the gas tanks full.”

West says the Bulldogs also plan to be hard to play against in their own zone.

“We’re going to defend hard. That’s what our coaching staff is preaching all the time. That’s going to be the focus of the team,” adds West.

Goaltending is expected to be another area of strength for the team, says West.

“We went out and got 20-year-old Matthew Hennessey who was the starting goalie in Bonnyville last year. We expect him to eat up quite a few starts and be very solid for us back there,” says West. “But also in saying that, rookie Charlie Zolin who we brought in, 18-years-old, has looked fantastic, so we feel very comfortable with those two in the crease.”

Another major highlight for the Bulldogs this season, is hosting the 2022 Alberta Junior Hockey League Showcase which will be held from September 29–October 2, 2022 at the Eagle Builders Centre in Blackfalds.

All 16 AJHL teams will compete in two regular season games at the 16th annual Showcase, which attracts thousands of fans and over 200 members of the scouting community. The annual showcase of AJHL talent is said to draw coaches and scouts from each National Hockey League (NHL) team, NCAA Division I, II and III schools, as well as Canadian colleges and universities and the Canadian Hockey League (CHL).

“I think it’s going to be an awesome event for our community. Not just Blackfalds, but central Alberta as a whole,” shares West. “Tickets have gone on sale for that at showpass.com for the Blackfalds Bulldogs. This is the first opportunity I feel that we’re going to really get to show-off our brand new building on a large scale with a big event like this.”

“We’re excited for the community of Blackfalds to get to see every team in the league and hopefully just get a little more awareness of the AJHL as a whole after getting introduced to us, the Bulldogs, for the first time last season,” adds West.

Ticket Info

Season Tickets – https://www.showpass.com/202223-bulldogs-season-tickets/

Single Game Tickets – https://www.showpass.com/202223-bulldogs-single-game-tickets/

Showcase Passes – https://www.showpass.com/2022-ajhl-showcase-passes/

Advertising Information

info@blackfaldsbulldogs.ca

All Team Info & Store

https://bulldogsclub.ca/