Killarney Shamrocks Win Second Straight Manitoba Senior A Crown
By
Scott Taylor Photos by Jeff Miller
It was the culmination of one of the greatest seasons in the history of the Killarney Shamrocks. The best team in the Tiger Hills Sr. A Hockey League came to Winnipeg for the province’ s Senior A championship weekend at MTS Iceplex and shut out Carberry 4-0 in the semifinal, then walloped the Norway House North Stars 9-3 in the final. For the second straight season, a group of close friends from a small southwestern community were on top of the provincial hockey summit … and to do it back-to-back sure felt good.
Shayne Skeoch was a pretty successful Triple A Bantam coach when he was asked to take the reins of the Tiger Hills Senior A Hockey League’ s Killarney Shamrocks. Because he knew most of the players and had a good rapport with all of them, he thought it would be a nice, easy job.
He didn’ t realize how easy.“ Yeah, there are times when I think I just open and close the gate,” Skeoch said as he celebrated a second straight Provincial Sr. A championship with his friends.“ We do talk about some things, but pretty much, I just roll the next five guys.“ It really is pretty easy coaching these guys. They step up when they have to and as a result, we had a real strong season. These guys all grew up together and to win with this group was really nice. We’ re a pretty fun group of guys. We have some fun bus trips and all these guys are friends. They’ re great to be around.” Last month, the Shamrocks showed the Province just how good they really were. Former Brandon Wheat Kings’ defenseman Reid Gow, a Killarney boy, born-and-bred, scored the eventual winning goal and set up four others as he led a close-knit group of hockeyplaying friends to a 9-3 victory over the Norway House North Stars in the final of Hockey Manitoba’ s Provincial Sr. A Championship weekend at MTS Iceplex. With the victory, the Shamrocks had won both the THHL championship and the Provincial title and finished
BIG SAVE BY NORWAY HOUSE’ S SONNY ALBERT