'TIPS ON TOP

Silvertips high-scoring, race-car- driving, softball-star Taylor Audette called the Manitoba Junior Women’s Hockey League’s championship game “stressful.” That’s not the kind of term you’d normally hear from a young woman who drives four-cylinder stock cars professionally in the summer months, but this year’s MWJHL championship clincher was a rare game. Back on March 22, Audette and the Silvertips beat the Gray Owls 2-1 in a shootout in Game 4 of the best-of-five MWJHL championship series to win the final three-games-to-one and claim the ’Tips first league and provincial Junior women’s banners since 2017. “That’s the first championship I’ve ever won,” said Audette, who led her team in scoring during the playoffs with three goals and seven points in just eight games. “I’ve been playing 13 years and it’s the first time I’ve ever won a league trophy. “And the final was stressful. We scored the first goal and the energy was so good and then they tied it up and we kind of flat-lined a little bit. We had so many chances but we just could not get the puck in the net. In overtime, everyone’s heart was racing, and then came the shootout and it was chaos. When our captain, Amelia Martin, scored the winner in the shootout, I think there was as much relief as celebration.” According to Silvertips head coach Ryan Hrankowski, Martin had a superb postseason. Not only did she score the golden goal in the shootout, she also scored a winner in Game 2 of the final with just three seconds remaining in regulation time. That goal gave the Silvertips a 2-0 series lead and after the Gray Owls won Game 3 convincingly, by a 4-1 score, the Silvertips prevailed in a thrilling Game 4 to earn the right to hoist the trophy. “It’s the first time I’ve won a championship since I coached my daughter’s team when she was seven,” said Coach Hrankowski. “When I coached in the MMJHL with the Raiders, we were never close, so this was pretty exciting. But it was a tough, tough grind. “In Game 1, we came out on fire and dominated. We were up 4-0 and were in complete control and then we sat back in the end and they scored a couple to make it 4-2. The second game was a tight one, but we won it on a power play with three seconds left in the third. We were nervous and played kind of scared in Game 3. We sat back and didn’t move our feet and it cost us. Game 4 was a barnburner. Back-and-forth and kind of like a 10-round boxing match.” With all the close, low-scoring games, the Silvertips’ 6-foot-tall goaltender Cortney Marko played a huge role in her team’s success. Marko, a heavy equipment operator with Sigfusson- Northern who missed a number of games this season because she was working on a construction project in northwestern Ontario, finished the playoffs with a record of 6-1, a goals-against average of 1.40 and a save percentage of .947. She allowed only 10 goals in seven games on 189 shots. “Cortney was massive for our team,” said Hrankowski. “But she was massive all year. During the regular season, because she was away working, she only played 10 games, but went 9-1-0 with a save percentage of .965 and an awesome goals-against average of 0.90. The confidence the team has when she’s in the net is high anyway, but during the playoffs, she was dialed in and focused. It was her last year in the Junior league and she was huge for us. There isn’t much more you can say when a goalie has a GAA below 1.00.” While Marko was tremendous, Hrankowski also had a great deal of praise for the rest of his team. “Our captain, Amelia Martin is, by far, the best player in our league,” said the coach. “Hailey Ross had five goals in the playoffs, Taylor Audette, who was big all year for us, Kelsey Forrest, Christine Oakley and Ashlyn Riley were all great for us. And our six D, in my opinion, make up the best defensive unit in the league. Our D was huge, but they were huge all year.” Christine Oakley, another player who won her first championship, also had three goals in the playoffs and was tied with Martin and Ross as the ’Tips second leading playoff scorers. “The feeling is amazing,” said Oakley, who just finished her fourth season in the MWJHL. “It’s super nice to have that trophy to go with the one for finishing first in the league so it was great to have both trophies. “I think we were really good and really successful because our team dynamic was unlike any team I’ve been on before. Everyone liked each other and we were all really good friends. That translated out onto the ice. We always played really well together and it was so much fun to be part of it.”