U18 Warriors looking to continue progress as regular season reaches the homestretch

In the 2025-2026 ALLIANCE regular season, the Stratford U18 AA Warriors are in the final stretch. With seven games remaining, the Warriors are in eighth spot in the league, but in the fourth seed in the six-team ALLIANCE Constellation AA Playdowns if the regular season concluded at press time.

In addition to the playoff push, the players are also completing their exams, adding to the psychological grind as of late.

Head coach Riley Mathieson is optimistic about the team’s potential and its preparation for the postseason but understands that a balance is needed to help the players focus both athletically and academically.

“I’m happy with the team's performance right now. We have a couple of tough games ahead between Waterloo and the London Knights Green. It's also exam time for our boys in high school right now, so we are juggling that, but so far, I'm happy with our performance, and we're looking to improve it in a couple of areas as we get closer to the push before playoffs,” Mathieson said.

“Both are extremely important, obviously, right now, with the time that they're at in school, it trumps hockey as it should. But I think it's important that the boys learn the life skill of being able to juggle more than just one life event, and I'm not worried about it, something we're going to have to navigate for a week or so. But other than that, it'll be right back to business once again, into a new semester.”

Team captain Owen Blain believes the team is generating good chemistry in time for the inevitable stretch run to the playdowns.

“The start of the season was a little rough. We didn't find everything. We didn't find out what we needed to do early in the season. But as the season kept going, it started to get better. We got some wins, some two-win weekends,” Blain said.

“We got a nice tournament win (Ajax). We've been trending upwards since mid-November and started December. So, it's nice to see the boys starting to mesh, really getting together and getting some runs.”

On Jan. 23, the Warriors travelled to Waterloo for their road matchup with the Wolves.

The home side opened the scoring with 2:30 left in the first period. The Warriors tied the game with 4:48 remaining in the second period, but Waterloo retook the lead 84 seconds into the third period and doubled the lead with 6:22 to go in the period.

Stratford closed the deficit to within one on the powerplay with 3:35 left and pressed on for an equalizer on the six-on-four powerplay late in the game. Despite their best efforts, the Warriors came up short, and Waterloo iced the game with an empty-net goal to win 4-2.

The Warriors returned to the road for their game against the London Jr. Knights Green on Jan. 26.

London opened the scoring with 2:36 left in the opening frame. Stratford responded on the powerplay with 79 seconds remaining in the second period, but the home side retook the lead and held on for a 2-1 win.

Next up for the Warriors is the U18 Bowling Green Tournament at Bowling Green University in Ohio from Jan. 30 to Feb. 2.