The EckRim Rimbey Atom A Renegades hockey team has had a great start to the 2015/16 season. A very strong pre-season earned them a spot in the North Central Hockey League’s Tier 1 division. The highly competitive league includes teams from Stettler, Lacombe, Sylvan Lake, Battle River and Sundre.
The Renegades have been very competitive thus far sitting in fourth place with a 4-5 record as of Dec 15. The boys recently took part in the Innisfail Atom A tournament and played hard into the championship final losing by the slimmest of margins(3-2) to Strathmore. Coach Chad Beagle said that he couldn’t have been more proud of the team and the way that they out-worked, out-skated and out-battled their opposition every game, even in the final. “That’s the first time I have ever had an opposing coach tell me that even though we won your team deserved to win that one,” said Beagle.
The team is looking very strong going into the new year, looking forward to Provincial play downs as well as league play and playoffs. “Our goal is first of all to make it back to the provincial tournament and once that happens we can set our sites on repeating as champs. We obviously don’t want to put the cart before the horse so to speak, but I am very confident in this team, they are an absolute blast to coach!” said Beagle. This year if the Renegades can win the zone the Atom B provincial tourney will be held in Vegreville March 17-20.
The 2015/16 EckRim Atom A Renegades are: No. 2 Ryder MacLeod, No. 4 Cooper Moore, No. 5 Brodie Hankel, No. 8 Graedy Landry, No. 10 Liam Tennant, No. 11 Keston Beagle, No. 12 Keegan Beagle, No. 14 Cole Wright, No. 15 Karson Ledieu, No. 16 Zach Neumeier, No. 17 Kaelan Plunkett and No. 31 Jayce Schatschneider. The head coach is Chad Beagle and assistant coaches are Jeremy Hankel, Stacy Tennant, Ted Plunkett and Jason Schatschneider.