1. Princess Roberts Seventeen-year-old Princess Roberts enjoyed a highly successful 2018 track-and-field season.
1. Princess Roberts
Seventeen-year-old Princess Roberts enjoyed a highly successful 2018 track-and-field season. After winning medal after medal at provincial and national meets, Roberts capped her year off with
an international debut at the Youth Olympic Games (YOG).
Roberts, who races for the Airdrie Aces at the club level and the Bert Church Chargers in school meets, wrapped up the outdoor track season ranked first in Canada for her age group in the 200-metre (m) sprint. The Grade-12 sprinter
proved to be among Canada’s finest Aug. 10 to 12, when she won gold in the 400-m and silver in the 200-m at the National Track and Field Championships.
Roberts didn’t hang up her cleats after nationals, however – her track season was extended until mid-October when she joined the Canadian team for the 2018 YOG in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Representing her country for the first time, Roberts raced to an 11th-place finish in the women’s 200-m sprint.
2. Airdrie Thunder
Airdrie’s Junior B hockey team enjoyed its
best-ever start to a season in the Heritage Junior Hockey League (HJHL), this year. The Thunder won its opening 18 regular-season games in 2018-19, before finally tasting defeat Nov. 16 in a 4-2 loss against the Coaldale Copperheads.
Airdrie’s dominance of the HJHL this season – the team currently boasts a 25-2-0 record – means the Thunder has a healthy lead over any challenger thus far, including its North Division rivals the Red Deer Vipers, as well as the Copperheads and the Okotoks Bisons – the top teams in the South Division.
The Thunder’s success has been a team effort, but the arrival of high-scoring veterans with Junior A experience – such as Jordan McConnell and Brayden Dunn – has made the team’s offensive prowess particularly noteworthy.
December additions Tyler Petrie and Barrett Sheen will provide even more firepower to the Thunder as the season enters the home stretch.
While a second-ever HJHL championship next spring is by no means a guarantee, hockey fans in Airdrie can be forgiven for expecting big things from this year’s roster.
3. Jinaye Shomachuk
Airdrie Aces athlete Jinaye Shomachuk consistently demonstrated her propensity for the hammer throw, discus and shot put throughout the 2018 outdoor-track-and-field season.
Despite being just 14 years old at the time,
Shomachuk recorded a three-kilogram (kg) hammer throw distance at a provincial track meet July 10 to 12 that placed her in the top eight nationwide for U18 women, and gave her the top spot among U18 women in Alberta. Her throw of 49.07 m was more than 16 m farther than her nearest competitor.
At the National Track and Field Championships Aug. 10 to 12 ,
Shomachuk recorded two gold medals despite her achieved distances falling short of her personal bests. She won gold in the U16 women’s hammer throw and took home another gold in the discus with a distance of 39.27 m, beating the Alberta record for her age group.
With consistent success in 2018, Shomachuk is currently ranked first in the three-kg hammer throw for U16 women across Canada.
4. Ayden Makarus
A lot went right for Airdrie baseball product Ayden Makarus in 2018.
The 17-year-old catcher signed his letter of intent Nov. 14 to play junior college ball next fall for the Louisiana State University (Eunice) Bengals. The school offers one of the top junior college baseball programs in the United States, and is the defending National Junior College Athletic Association champion.
Prior to officially committing to his post-secondary program, the Okotoks Dawgs Academy player laced up his cleats to play at the Baseball Canada Cup Aug. 8 to 12, and the Tournament 12 showcase in Toronto with Team Alberta Sept. 13 to 17. Following those two experiences,
he enjoyed donning the Canada jersey for the first time when he took part in the junior national team’s fall instructional league in Central Florida in October.
Makarus said it was an honour to represent his country, adding his next goal is to be included in the junior national team’s spring training camp in March.
“This is something I’ve been working towards for a year or so, and I finally got to see all the hard work pay off,” he said.
5. Airdrie Storm
Since forming in 2005, the Airdrie Storm enjoyed its most successful season in 2018.
The team posted a 6-1 record and scored more points than any other team in the Calgary Peewee Football Association (CPFA) during the regular season, before earning its first-ever berth to the CPFA Tier 1 playoffs by shutting out the Cochrane Lions 44-0 in the opening playoff fixture.
The Storm continued its strong post-season showing by
defeating the perennially-strong Calgary Cowboys 36-6 in the Tier 1 semi-final. According to head coach Nolan Rohl, the Storm was the first team to keep the Cowboys out of the Tier 1 championship game in 13 seasons.
“We just came out and ran the [Cowboys] over,” Rohl said. “They couldn’t do anything, and were on their heels the whole game.”
Unfortunately, a Hollywood ending was not in the cards –
the Storm fell 34-0 to the Calgary Wildcats in the championship game, in front of more than 300 fans at Shouldice Athletic Park.
6. Airdrie Xtreme
Boasting one of the strongest rosters in the league, the Xtreme put forth a fantastic showing in the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League (AMBHL) in 2017-18. The team
secured its first provincial title in nine years March 21, when it overcame the St. Albert Sabres 2-1 in Game 5 of the AMBHL championship series. The victory came in remarkable fashion, with the Xtreme scoring the winning goal in the fourth round of overtime.
“It was an extremely competitive series – both teams left it all on the line,” said last season’s assistant coach Reid Hnatowich, who is now the team's head coach. “It came down to who was mentally able to stay focused.”
Airdrie’s season continued when the Xtreme competed at the 2018 Western Canadian Bantam AAA Championships in late March and early April. The team put forth an impressive effort
to finish with the silver medal, losing in overtime in the gold-medal game April 1 to the Seafair Islanders.
Additionally,
seven of the Xtreme’s graduating players were selected in the Western Hockey League’s 2018 Bantam Draft, and eight competed for Team Central at the 2018 Alberta Cup in April.
7. Aidan Carruthers
Eleven-year-old Aidan Carruthers proved to be
western Canada’s finest go-kart rider for the Briggs Cadet age group, Aug. 26, when he won the Junior 1 racing class of the Western Canadian Karting Championships (WCKC).
The WCKC included six races at three separate tracks in western Canada, and took place from May to August. Carruthers sat atop the leaderboard throughout the series, winning all but one of his races.
“It feels really great – this is what all the hard work has been for,” he said after winning the final race in Chilliwack.
The Windsong Heights student has been racing karts as a member of the Calgary Karting Club since he was eight years old. His father, Ryan, who is also a motorsports enthusiast, got him involved with the sport.
“It’s not really him being pushed, but him pushing himself,” Ryan said. “I think it comes down to him just really enjoying it and having that desire to go faster.”
8. Airdrie Mohawks
For the third year in a row, Airdrie’s Senior C men’s lacrosse team went undefeated in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League (RMLL) and
capped off another successful season with a third consecutive RMLL Senior C championship. The Mohawks has proven to be the dominant force in senior C lacrosse in Alberta in recent years, and hasn’t lost a regular-season game or playoff fixture since 2015.
By winning the RMLL once again, the Mohawks moved on to Coquitlam, B.C., for the Alcan Cup, at the western Canadian Sr. C lacrosse championships. The event marked the Mohawks’ third trip to British Columbia in as many years to compete for the western title.
While Airdrie managed the bronze in 2016 and 2017, the team fared a bit better this time around.
The Mohawks finally broke its semi-final curse, but ended up settling for the silver medal after losing by just one point to the Ladner Pioneers in the championship game.
Mohawks goaltender Angus Jones said the defeat was a heartbreaker.
“We had a glorious opportunity with about 20 seconds left,” he said. “Their goaltender made the save of his lifetime on a quick stick from Aaron Hanson.”
9. Rachel Andres
Airdrie Aces throws coach Rachel Andres isn’t just great at pushing her athletes to do their best – she’s quite capable of showing them how it’s done, as well.
In July, the 31-year-old Oklahoma native
won a gold medal at the Canadian National Track and Field Championships in Ottawa. In the final round of the open women’s discus event, she recorded a distance of 56.82 m – nearly four metres further than the distance achieved by her nearest competitor. The throw not only won her gold, but also set a new provincial record for women’s discus in Alberta.
The win qualified Andres for the 2018 North America, Central America and Caribbean (NACAC) Championships, held Aug. 10 to 12 in Toronto.
There, she finished fourth in both the women’s discus and javelin events.
This year marked Andres’ first time competing as a Canadian athlete, after she was granted Canadian citizenship in July.
According to Andres, her next goal in the sport is to qualify for the 2020 Olympics, to be held in Tokyo.
10. Colton Clarke
2018 was also a big year for Airdrie luger Colton Clarke, who won his first national senior title Oct. 20, in Whistler, B.C. His two-run time of 1:41.902, meant he narrowly bested 2018 Olympic luger Reid Watts.
Clarke, who turned 17 the week after the win, said he had entered the competition with an open mind.
“Going into the race, I was thinking I just wanted two clean runs,” he said. “I didn’t put too much stress or pressure on myself to perform.
“I just went down the track focused on doing as best as I can.”
The George McDougall student was also invited to compete for the Canadian senior national team in the first two competitions on the 2018-19 senior World Cup circuit in Iglis, Austria, Nov. 24 and in Calgary, Dec. 7 to 8. While he didn’t qualify for the finals in Austria, he finished 22nd competing on his hometown track, in his senior World Cup debut.
