Two goals from Brayden Dunn – including an overtime snipe on a two-on-one – brought the Airdrie Techmation Thunder its first Junior B provincial championship, April 7.
The gold-medal victory came in a 4-3 win over the Wainwright Bisons – the defending provincial Junior B champs. The Thunder’s historic win concluded an incredible season for Airdrie’s Junior B hockey club, according to head coach Derek Stamp.
“I’ve coached hockey for 20 years, and seasons like this and groups like this, they don’t come around very often,” he said. “When [they] do, you just really enjoy their successes. We’re proud of everything the guys did.”
Airdrie made its final game of 2018-19 a nail-biter as the team came within inches of falling short. Despite The Thunder taking a 2-1 lead into the third period, with goals from Barrett Sheen and Michael Dubois, Wainwright scored two quick power-play goals, bringing the score to 3-2. A three-peat for the Bisons – which won the provincial crown in 2017 and 2018 – appeared likely.
It was Dunn who came to the Thunder’s rescue. With a little more than three minutes left on the clock, the 20-year-old forward stickhandled the puck between two Bisons defensemen before deking left and lifting a back-hander above the Wainwright goalie’s sprawling right pad.
“It was unbelievable – I honestly can’t believe it even happened,” Dunn said. “Moving into overtime, we felt we had the momentum on our side.”
That momentum propelled the Thunder into the sudden-death period, where Dunn scored the championship winner on a two-on-one with defenseman Jason Wenzel, just 30 seconds into the first shift.
“Wenzel got the puck, moved it over to me and I just took off [down the right],” Dunn said. “Everything went from there – I found a spot short side and roofed it, and we won the game.”
The performance was extra sweet for Dunn, who had almost given up hockey at the age of 19, following two ankle surgeries that kept him sidelined for a year.
“For him to be able to come back and play this type of season with his buddies, and cap it off with his performance in the provincials – especially that last game – it couldn’t have happened to a better person,” Stamp said.
The team dominated the Heritage Junior Hockey League (HJHL) all year, going 35-3-0 during the regular season, and 12-1 in the playoffs. Airdrie secured its first HJHL title since 2000 with an 8-3 win March 26 over the Coaldale Copperheads, sweeping the South Division champion in three games.
The wins kept coming in Wetaskiwin April 4 and 5, as Airdrie breezed through the round robin with a 4-2 win over the Edmonton Beverly Warriors, a 6-2 victory against the Grande Prairie JDA Kings and a 7-4 triumph over the Calgary Royals.
The Thunder then booked its ticket to the championship game April 6 with the team’s 50th win of the season – a dominant 8-0 shutout in the semi-finals against the host team, the Wetaskiwin Icemen.
But securing the provincial crown proved the Thunder’s toughest challenge. The Bisons enjoyed a 29-3-0 record in the North Eastern Alberta Junior B Hockey League regular season, before securing the 2019 NEAJBHL title with a 12-1 record in playoffs.
Like the Thunder, the two-time defending Junior B provincial champion won its first four games in Wetaskiwin, setting up for a thrilling final fixture between two sides that spent most of the season ranked as the top two Junior B teams in Alberta.
“[The Bisons] gave us a tough battle and had us down 3-2 up until the final three minutes,” Dunn said. “Props to them, because their goalie played awesome, they had a really good first line and their power play was unbelievable.”
With more than a dozen 20-year-olds and two 21-year-olds on the team, the championship win proved the final hurrah of junior hockey for many Thunder players.
“We’ll wrap up with a banquet and then we’ll be into the offseason, looking to assemble next year’s team,” Stamp said. “There were a lot of parents on the ice at the end of the game, and a lot of teary eyes.”
