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Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference "To be Canada's premiere collegiate athletic conference by developing and inspiring leadership through excellence in academics, sport and citizenship"
Posted: Mar 24, 2023

The Kings are champions for the first time in 29 years, defeating the Ooks 2-1 in Game 3

The Kings are champions for the first time in 29 years, defeating the Ooks 2-1 in Game 3
Box Score
Scoring Summary
2nd - 02:06 - Dylan Stewart (NAIT)
2nd - 18:27 - Holden Knights (RDP)
3rd - 01:17 - Erik Miller (RDP)
Game Leaders
NAIT
G: Dylan Stewart - 1
A: 2 Players (#19, #27) - 1
Sh: N/A
Sv: Ryley Osland - 26
RDP
G: 2 Players (#74, #94) - 1
A: 3 Players (#04, #24, #51) - 1
Sh: N/A
Sv: Arik Weersink - 23
Team Stats
Full stats

Red Deer, March 24, 2023 – The Red Deer Polytechnic Kings swept the NAIT Ooks in the best-of-five-game championship series and win their first championship since the 1993/1994 season.  

The first period went uneventful for the second straight game. But the Kings were surely making Ooks goaltender Ryley Osland (Business Administration) sweat a little as they fired 17 shots on goal in the first 20 minutes. NAIT, on the other hand, had just three shots and would start the second period on the penalty kill.

But the Ooks would kill it off and moments later would open up the scoring of Game 3. Off a faceoff, in their own zone, the Kings could not clear the puck as the Ooks were forechecking. This led to the puck landing on the stick of forward Dylan Stewart (Open Studies), who would rifle it past Kings goaltender Arik Weersink (Bachelor of Business Administration) for the early lead.

The Kings would return the favour with under two minutes to go. Defenseman Layne Toder (Management Certificate Skywing) sauced over a pass to forward Holden Knights (Bachelor of Education), who finished it off with a highlight reel goal as he backhanded the puck over the glove of Osland into the top corner of the net to tie it up at one.

After the second period, the Kings still were outshooting the Ooks 24-19 but NAIT controlled the pace of the game in the middle frame as they made Weersink work for all 14 saves in the 20 minutes and just held the Polytechnic to seven shots.

Two minutes into the final period, forward Erik Miller (Business Administration) would walk into the Ooks zone beat a diving defenseman and sneak one past Osland for their first lead of the hockey game.

This would ultimately be the series-clinching and game-winning goal as the Kings defeated the Ooks 2-1. At the end of the game, the Polytechnic outshot NAIT 28-24.

As he stopped 26 of 28 shots, Ryley Osland was named the player of the game with the Kings goaltender Arik Weersink also being honored with the player of the game award.

What a way to end the 2022/2023 RDP Athletics schedule with the Queens also winning the championship on Friday night.