(Submitted photo/Dean Hardie)

By Ben Tompkins

Investing in the Future

Thunder looking to become younger, run like Junior A program after disappointing season

Mar 15, 2024 | 1:34 PM

It’s safe to say the Carrot River Outback Thunder didn’t have their best season this year, as they were the lone team of 11 in the Prairie Junior Hockey League (PJHL) to not make the playoffs.

While the club isn’t satisfied with the results or that standard, they believe in their future and are investing in just that.

“We’re real happy with our new head coach, Steve Percy did a great job with the guys and I think we just felt a little bit short. We played we played some good hockey games, we were just about a .500 club at home, but we struggled to find consistency on the road, as we were 2 and 18,” explained general manager, Dean Hardie.

“Obviously, it was a little disappointing, at the end we had a chance to make it into the playoffs and we played some good hockey, but we just didn’t finish some games.”

The plan, as it stands right now, is to become a younger team next season and run more like a Junior A program.

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Not too long off the heels of their season, as other teams still battle in the PJHL postseason, Carrot River has already sent out roughly 70 letters to new prospective players to get a head start on the 2024/25 campaign.

“We’ve reached out to U18 AA and U18 AAA kids in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and we’re kind of targeting 06 and 07s this year. We’re only losing about seven or eight players, but we would like to go a little bit younger, so we’re going to change the program up a little bit here and we’re going to four practices a week to try and run it more like a Junior A program,” Hardie added.

“Hopefully, we can get some even high school-aged and 17-year-olds in here that we’re gonna play their last year of U18 AA, but if we offer some more ice to them, hopefully, we can get the late bloomers from Junior B midget to the next level in Junior A. Being we’re in between Melfort and Nipawin, we’d like to be an affiliate team for both of those teams.”

According to Hardie, the entire organization is behind the changes and is now in a position to afford more ice time.

Being a non-playoff/survivor series team the past couple of years just hasn’t cut it, therefore the emphasis on hard work ethic and competition level will be top of mind.

Hardie still doesn’t want to put a negative spin on this past season but he believes the group often had chances at the beginning of the games and a few small lulls here and there just got overblown by other teams’ executions.

With the hopes of putting the puck in the net more and dealing with some early growing pains, he is excited for the future and giving the fans of Carrot River what they deserve.

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On X @BenTompkins_8