The 100 Mile House Wranglers' playoff dreams came to an end on Saturday, April 5.
The Wranglers lost 5-4 to the Revelstoke Grizzlies in the Okanagan Conference Finals in Revelstoke after what proved to be a tough hard-fought loss. It marked the end of what has been the team's best season on record since the championship team of 2025/2026. Head coach Levi Stuart said while he hated for the series to end on the Grizzlies' home ice, he was proud of his team for the grit they showed in the final game.
"It was a tough one to lose for sure. Would have been nice to at least pull that one off and play one more game at home if not push the series on," Stuart said. "Either way, I'm proud of the boys. It was a hard-fought game and we had no give-up, we competed all the way through. It didn't really matter what the score was or what the series was at, we were in the fight the whole way."
Stuart said it was an emotional night for his players following the loss, especially for those players who are 20 years old and will now be ageing out of junior hockey. He noted that goalie Jayden Shaw came in and did a good job in the Wranglers' net and played his heart out, especially for a player who hadn't played for some time.
"It's tough for everybody as the final buzzer goes and you realize the season is over," Stuart remarked. "It was pretty emotional in the dressing room, that's all I can say about that game."
Looking back on the season, Stuart said his first time as coach of the 100 Mile House Wranglers went well. When he took over the Wranglers had just failed to make playoffs after only winning 11 games during the 2023/2024 season. With the assistance of the coaching and training staff including Russel Sanderson, Lee Hansen, Rainer Meyer and Christian Sampson, Stuart was able to turn the franchise around and make it one of the top four in the league.
With that in mind, Stuart said he is pretty happy with how far the team has come, though he noted of course he would have liked to have gone even further and win the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League championship. Stuart said next year reaching the finals will be the entire team's goal.
"We should have a fair amount of returning guys, which is nice, so that will help right off the bat to build. It's pretty unheard of in our league to do as well as we did with only three 20-year-olds in a league where you can carry eight. Most teams carry six to eight 20-year-olds and that extra year of maturity is usually the difference maker," Stuart remarked.
"For us to be a mostly 18 to 19 year old group was really impressive to see how far we went and it's also nice to know we can have a lot of those guys returning next year. Hopefully, they come back stronger and faster with experience in the playoffs so we can build off the success we had this year."
To that end, Stuart and the team are already looking ahead to the 2025/2026 season, which will mark 10 years since the Wranglers first won the KIJHL championship. This week Stuart is organizing a spring camp from April 10 to 11 at the South Cariboo Rec Centre to evaluate new prospects for next year's team.
"We're hopefully looking to find another couple of guys out of spring camp and it will be nice to show them our home rink and get them to know the community as early as possible."
Stuart said that the banner for winning the Doug Birks Division during the regular season will be unveiled at the beginning of next season. He noted that the team is happy to have added this banner to the rafters of the South Cariboo Rec Centre as a way to thank the fans for all their support this year.
"The biggest thing for us was seeing a full barn with lots of people at every game. It makes a world of difference and gives the boys the energy and motivation they need and makes it that more attractive of a place to want to come play when you see a building as lively as it is here," Stuart remarked. "Without that, you can't really have a successful team. So I want to say thank you to everybody in the community and all the fans."
