Dedication and perseverance paid off for the U17 Northstars Hockey Academy who won the Junior Prospects Hockey League (JPHL) championship over the weekend.

The JPHL team, based out of Williams Lake, swept the best-of-three series with a 6-5 overtime win Friday, March 15, and a 6-1 finish on Saturday, March 16 in Edmonton, Alberta.

鈥淭his team truly came together in the second half of the season and just kept building. Now, after making it through Okanagan HC in Round 1, Langley HA in Round 2, and the top seed Titans HU in the finals, they can call themselves JPHL Champions,鈥� noted the league following the championship win.

Since the start of 2024, the Northstars have been on the road eight of 11 weekends. 

The team鈥檚 three-weekend playoff run started March 1 against Okanagan HC in Abbotsford. The best-of-three series saw the Northstars take game one 4-3, and secure their spot in the B.C. semi-finals with a 7-2 win. 

The following weekend in Vernon was the B.C. finals against top-seed Langley HA. This best-of-three series took all three games, with Langley taking game one, with a 4-3 win in an OT shootout, while the Northstars answered with definitive 7-1 and 6-2 wins to continue their playoff run.

Off to Edmonton for the JPHL U17 Championship, the Northstars were up against the top Alberta U17, the Titans Hockey Union. This was a familiar match-up for both teams, as last season these two met in the finals with Titans coming out on top.

Game one was a 5-5 nail biter after regulation time. As the game was still not settled after a 10 minute three-on-three overtime, it went to a shootout. Rylan Harder was in net and stood tall to save every shot with Daxton Endicott scoring the game winning shoot-out goal.

The Northstars took fast control of game two and by the end of the second period saw them up 6-0. Kacey Huffman faced 39 shots in net and goals by Ernst, Gillanders, Endicott, and a natural hat trick by Asher Lucas, ended the game 6-1, and Northstars celebrated their championship win.

Head coach Tyrel Lucas said these wins were the combination of every player playing their best, and that each player bought into the 鈥渁ll-in鈥� mentality.

鈥淭his is the championship recipe that every team can only hope to accomplish from the start of the season to the end. Going down the stretch it was evident in the results of the hockey games how they were learning to win as a team,鈥� said Lucas. 鈥淲hen we kept 100 per cent focused on ourselves, not the opponent, and played simple, disciplined hockey - good things happened.鈥�

This year about half of the roster was filled with players from Williams Lake, while the rest of the Northstars players hail from Terrace, 亚洲天堂 Lake, Fort St. John, Vanderhoof, Saskatchewan, 100 Mile House and Quesnel.

The out-of-town players stayed with billet families and attended school in Williams Lake during the season.

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