The Sandy Bay Badgers made a statement this season in the Westman High School Hockey League.

Despite losing in the second round of the playoffs, the Badgers won their first 13 games of the regular season en route to a 19-4-0 record. Head coach Magnus Mousseau says in that second-round series, they fell two games to zero but fought extremely hard in game two, however, they just couldn’t get the puck to bounce their way.

He talks about how they felt about the performance in the postseason.

"As coaches, we were happy with the way the boys played. We were also hurting for them at the end of the game when we lost to Dauphin. The boys came together and played a lot harder as a team after our provincial playoff game, which we lost in OT. The boys used that as motivation and came together to get to the second round," says Mousseau. "What we are not happy with, as coaches, is we are losing seven players to graduation, and being with the boys all season long they really have an impact on us as coaches. We will miss those seven players next season."

Mousseau says the team only had a few practices prior to the season's start due to the winter storm in early October affecting their schedule. With that being the case, he was even more impressed by the hot start the badgers came out with, adding the team gelled together very quickly and they played for each other all season.

Sandy Bay was led in scoring by Gabriel Beaulieu who totaled 37 points (24G, 13A) in 23 games played. Ethan Winters led the squad in assists with 18, Everette Beaulieu had a team-best three power-play goals, and Keelin Levasseur was also key offensively putting up 16 goals and 15 assists for 31 points.

Mousseau outlines how he feels about the roster going into next season.

"Like I said, we are losing seven players to graduation, on defence we are losing three players and we are losing four forwards," Mousseau explains. "We have been watching the bantam teams from Sandy Bay and Gladstone over the course of the season and there are some good players coming up to the high school division, the question is are they going to be good enough to push the older boys for spots. In saying that, I do believe we will have similar success as this season, our two goalies were in grade 10, and the grade 10 & 11 players took big steps by taking a bigger role on the team as we played out the season and into the playoffs. So, as coaches, we are confident we will be contending again next season, whenever that starts."