Wildcats U18 team ready for 2026 provincial championships

The Woodstock Wildcats U18 BB team recently won the Southern League Championship and is ranked second in the province as the OWHA provincial tournament begins on Friday, April 10. (Contributed photo)

Lee Griffi, Editor

“I’ve coached girls' hockey now for 18 years, and for me, this is what the entire season is all about.”

Those were the words of Woodstock Wildcats U18 BB coach Jeff Shapton when asked by the Echo how excited he and his team were heading into this weekend’s Ontario Women’s Hockey Association Provincial Championships. The massive tournament is being held across the GTA from April 10 to 12.

“My philosophy is I treat the league as a buildup to get to provincials, and this is the pinnacle. We’ve had a pretty successful season where we’ve won three tournaments, including the International Silver Stick, finalists in a tournament in Montreal, and we won our league championship which was a huge accomplishment,” he added.

Shapton explained winning the league title was likely more of a challenge than what the provincials will be.

“Winning the league, which we just won, we had to play really high-end hockey for about two months. We won provincials two years ago, so we know what it takes to win. We know we are one of the best teams in the province, but guess what, we know we have to play well.”

The Wildcats are ranked number two in Ontario, and Shapton admitted his team doesn’t win on skill alone, but it will take one heck of an effort for any team to beat them.

“My style and my system are you don’t have to be the most talented player in the world to play for us, but you have to be willing to work harder than anyone else. I would much rather have a team like I have today, with a whole bunch of hard-working kids who are good hockey players.”

The coach admitted he doesn’t have a star player on his team, something he sees as a huge positive.

“The problem when you have one or two kids who are so-called stars is that as a coach, you get so fixated on them you forget about the rest of the game. What we have is a bunch of really good players, but we have to play a team system to have success.”

Shapton said he and his coaching staff have come up with a style of hockey that is hard to compete against.

“It’s very hard for our opposition to play three 15-minute periods at the same level we do. Teams can hang around with us for two periods but we seem to find another gear in the third period and distance ourselves late in games.”

32 teams are competing at provincials, and joining Woodstock in Pool B are Collingwood, Flamborough and Waterloo, all teams the Wildcats have not faced this season.

“No matter who is in your pool, provincials are hard and we know every team is gunning for us. There are some really good teams and this is going to be a battle. Only one team comes out of each pool. I think we have an advantage playing teams who haven’t seen us before because we play a high-energy, heavy on the forecheck, really good on the backcheck, where we take teams' time and space away.”

While not bringing home a medal would be a disappointment, Shapton’s teams have only won a single medal in more than a dozen appearances.

“It’s so hard to just make Sunday. And if this team doesn’t come home with a medal, I don’t want that to take away from the accomplishments this group has made. Our focus is to win gold because I truly believe we are the best team in the province.”

He added several other teams feel the same way, which should make for an extremely competitive tournament.

“I tell my girls all the time, this shouldn’t be easy. If we come home with a medal of any colour, it will be a massive accomplishment.”

The Southern League championship game against the Sudbury Lady Wolves was played on March 28 at Westwood Arena in Etobicoke with the Wildcats winning in a dramatic shootout.

The U15 A Wildcats are also participating in the tournament and are in a pool with Flamborough, Nepean and Peterborough.