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season with a mark of 21-2-5. They finish the season with an overall record of 57-8-8.

There’s one more item Franko hopes the Rangers can add to their resume this season, but it’s one the team has no control over. Oakville is currently the second-ranked minor bantam AA team in Ontario according to MyHockeyRankings.com, sitting behind only the Greater Toronto Hockey League’s Mississauga Jets (65-8-7). The teams did not face each other this season.

“We firmly believe we’re the best AA team in the province, and we might still end up No. 1,” Franko said, noting the Jets’ final ranking would be determined by how they fare in their league final.

Members of the minor bantam AA Rangers are Lucas Ricci, Ellis Zampini, Jonathan Donville, Liam Finkle, Tim Gibson, Alex Montague, Ben Hamburg, Steve Jang, Craig McCormick, Matt Di Lella, Liam Coderre, Michael Franko, Cale Cutcliffe, Daniel Moll, Kyle Kolwich, Josh Rees and Michael Pare. John Rees and Dino Zampini are the team’s assistant coaches, Blake Cutcliffe is the trainer and Steven McCormick is the man-ager.

Minor atom A

His team lost just two of 28 Tri-County league games this season, but minor atom A Rangers head coach Mike Kennedy was never concerned about his club’s regular-season record.

“Development is a tough word to define, really,” said Kennedy, who played 145 games in the National Hockey League during the 1990s — most of them with the Dallas Stars. “To me, it’s being able to teach the kids without worrying about losing games. I think it’s always the par-ents who are worried about losing games. I’d rather be .500 and win a championship.”

To ensure the team improved as the year went along, Kennedy and his coaching staff tried to create challenges for the squad. Prior to Christmas, Kennedy didn’t even allow his play-ers to rim the puck around the boards in their own end, forcing them to find other ways to break out.

“I want kids to find their way out of trouble,”

Kennedy said. “Then, in the playoffs, when I started letting them rim the puck around the boards, that was their last out. But sometimes they didn’t have to.”

The ability to get themselves out of trouble paid off for the Rangers in their OMHA champi-onship series against Cobourg. Facing a Cougars squad that entered the final with just one loss on the year, Oakville lost the opening game 4-3 and found itself in overtime in the second game.

But the Rangers found a way. Oakville won the second game 4-3, then whipped Cobourg 9-2 in Game 3 before finishing the Cougars off Sunday with a 3-2 win in Cobourg.

“I thought our team played really well,” Kennedy said of the series. “Even though we lost the first game, it was an indicator that we could play with those guys. My boys realized that (Cobourg), even though they’d lost only one game all year, was beatable.”

Contributing to the minor atom A Rangers’ OMHA title win were Owen Kennedy, James Passafiume, Brady Afelskie, Jack Stallworthy, Kole Schledewitz, Aiden O’Sullivan, Ryan Brown, Adam Cherepacha, Mathew Dybka, Tyler Ford, Michael Goverde, Evan Kollee, Nicholas Legaspi, Dawson Maloney, Tyler McLeish, Joshua Platt and Jack Talbot. Jason McLeish and Zoltan Nemcsek are the team’s assistant coaches, Peter O’Sullivan is the trainer and Chris Brown is the manager.

Minor midget AE

Three months ago, no one could have liked the minor midget AE Rangers’ odds of winning a third straight OMHA championship.

Some off-ice issues prompted head coach Gary Molloy to overhaul his roster, releasing several players and bringing in affiliate players to patch the holes. And on the ice, the Rangers were struggling through a seven-game winless skid, winning just once in the month of December.

“In all honesty, I didn’t think we’d have a chance at the OMHA championship,” Molloy admitted.

How quickly things can change.The Rangers secured their third straight

OMHA gold last weekend in Peterborough, post-ing back-to-back wins over Peterborough Church to win the first-to-six points series three games to one. The teams split two games in Oakville the previous weekend before the Rangers took control of the series Saturday with a 4-1 win, then clinched the title with a 3-1 vic-tory Sunday.

Molloy traced the team’s turnaround back to the hometown Richard Bell tournament in late December, when the Rangers reached the semi-finals. Oakville carried that momentum into the new year, winning its last three Tri-County league games and surviving the preliminary round of the OMHA playdowns.

From there, Oakville upset two teams that finished ahead of it in league play — Orangeville and Stoney Creek, the latter in a six-game semi-final — to reach the championship series.

“In the new year, they really started to develop as a team and support each other,” Molloy said. “They had a common goal to win this champion-ship, and they really worked hard to do it.”

The way that affiliate players like Sean Bureau, Patrick Enman and Luke Hatfield immediately fit in with the rest of the team was also key to the Rangers’ resurgence, Molloy added.

Six members of this year’s minor midget AE Rangers team — Tim Molloy, Victor Christiansen, Scott Lengyel, Austin Platt, Oliver Green and Cole Vincent — were part of the AE teams that also won OMHA titles in 2010 (minor bantam) and last year (bantam). Each championship was led by a different head coach, with Graham Stoddart behind the bench of the 2010 squad and Dave Bessant directing last year’s team.

Other members of the OMHA champion minor midget AE Rangers are Cameron Poirier, Matthew Barth, Alex Bisson, Graeme Cornell, Alex Kolisnyk, Aidan Milroy-Seignuer, Justin Pinzon and Roddy Varey. Andrew Barth and Jacques Poirier are the club’s assistant coaches, Dave Platt is the trainer and Peter Christiansen is the manager.

— Jon Kuiperij can be followedon Twitter at @Beaversports

Minor atom A coach wasn’t concerned about recordContinued from page 24

The success of Minor Oaks Hockey Association (MOHA) rep teams has dominated sports head-lines of the Beaver the last couple weeks, but the MOHA isn’t the only local hockey association enjoy-ing a successful spring.

Oakville Hornets Girls Hockey Association squads are also faring well in their playoffs, with eight of 19 rep teams in the Hornets system advancing to the ‘Final Four’ of the Lower Lakes Female Hockey League (LLFHL) play-downs.

The novice A, atom AA, peewee B, peewee A, pee-wee AA, bantam AA, midget A and midget AA Hornets will compete at the LLFHL championship weekend this weekend in Mississauga.

This year marks the most representation the Hornets have ever had at this late stage of the LLFHL season.

The Hornets have also reached a new high water-mark in the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association (OWHA) pro-vincial playoff, with an association-record 18 teams qualified to repre-sent the town.

OWHA provincial cham-pionship tournaments will be contested April 13-15 at venues throughout the Greater Toronto Area.

ONE MAN TO BEAT:Oakville minor atom A Rangers player Michael Goverde (in white) tries to get past Cobourg Cougars defenceman Ryan Crowley during the teams’ Ontario Minor Hockey Association cham-pionship series. The Rangers over-came an opening-game loss to win the series in four.

STEVEN DER-GARABEDIAN /

SPECIAL TO THE OAKVILLE BEAVER

Hornets also

enjoying strong spring