BARRHEAD - The Barrhead U18 Steelers defeated the Whitecourt Wolverines for the first time this season, taking the Dec. 2 home game 4-2 in a well-deserved victory.
However, the real winners of the night will be the recipients of the Barrhead and District Family Community Support Services (FCSS) food bank and Santa's Toy Box program.
That is because the Steelers, as part of their annual tradition, invited their fans to drop off a new toy for Santa's Toy Box, a program that works to ensure children in need from newborn to 17 receive a gift for Christmas. But the Steelers had one more surprise for community and volunteer development coordinator Trisha Enman who is in charge of both Santa's Toy Box and the food bank.
In a short pre-game ceremony, the Steelers with a cheque for the food bank for $818, which the team earned through an impromptu bottle drive the weekend.
"They told me they were going to donate to the food bank earlier this week, but I did not know it was going to be so much," she said, noting it was one of, if not the single largest cash donations since she has joined FCSS.
One of the Steelers coaches, Steven Kaplan, added that Jett Parks told the coaching staff that they wanted to do a bottle drive to raise money and asked if there would be any obstacles for them doing so such as league rules, et cetera. The coaches after a quick check with the league gave them the all-clear.
"They weren't able to go to all the neighbourhoods in Barrhead before dark, but they were able to get a substantial haul of four or five pickups full," Kaplan said.
Two days later, Park took the day off from school and took their loot to the bottle depot to cash in.
"It took (the staff at the bottle depot) three to four hours to sort it all," Parks said.
As for the hockey game, the Steelers were full credit for their victory, outshooting their Whitecourt opponents 46-32, going two for nine on the power play or a 22 per cent efficiency and were perfect 7-0 on the penalty kill. The majority of the Steelers' offence came in the first period with goals by Tray Pruess (assisted by Magnus Kaplan and Kyle De Vries), Jett Parks (assisted by Tayson Hallock) and Preuss (assisted by
Trent Gravel and Tyler Erickson). In the third period, Cohen Dancause scored the Steelers' final goal (assisted by Erickson and Kayden Rentz). William Bain went the distance in net stopping 30 out of 32 shots to earn the win. Barrhead's next home game will be on Dec. 17 against Hinton. The puck drop is at 1:15 p.m.
