U18 Female Selects looking strong to kick off title defense

There is a new face behind the bench of the Eastman Selects Manitoba Female Hockey League’s U18 AAA team.

With Laird Laluk dropping down to coach his daughter in the program’s U15 team, Trevor Hildebrand has taken the reigns. He’s behind the bench of one of the most defensively sound teams you could find, with two excellent goalies to match. Hildebrand coached the U15 team before moving up and is familiar with a lot of the players on this roster.

The team proved that, going down to Minnesota earlier this month to dominate a tournament with four consecutive shutout victories to win their division.

“From top to bottom, it’s quite enjoyable,” Hildebrand said.

“I’ve been in Eastman for eight years, so I’ve coached a lot of these girls coming up. I knew what we had… It is an absolute treat, that’s for sure.”

Hildebrand said the entire roster has committed to playing a 200-foot game.

“They really take pride in playing off the puck, defending and checking hard,” he said.

“When we don’t have the puck, we talk about how we are going to get it back.”

It helps two of the best goaltenders in the province, Addison Tomes and Isabelle Labossiere, are between the pipes to cover up mistakes when they do happen. Hildebrand said the priority throughout the season will be to get both goalies a look at as many different teams as possible so when playoffs come around, they can play the better match-up to start the series.

Having an outstanding pair of goaltenders is a big advantage for the Selects when they do play tournament hockey, as they can rotate freely without seeing a drop-off in play.

“We’ve got two elite goalies,” Hildebrand said.

“The message to them is we have a high degree of confidence is in… It’s an incredibly luxury.”

Hildebrand said the team knows as defending champions they’ll get the opposition’s best effort every night and can’t let any mid-season lulls go on too long.

“We know what we’re capable of on a night-in-night out basis, it’s making sure we continue to elevate the bar and elevate the standard in our room,” Hildebrand said.

“You know there’s going to be spells within the season, within games, where it’s just not going to go your way and you’re going to face a little adversity. We talk about how we recover, how we bounce back, minimizing those spots.”

The Selects should be battling the two Winnipeg teams in the MFHL for supremacy this season. Fans who made the trip to the Hockey for All Centre to watch a game between Eastman and the Winnipeg Ice Oct. 8 were rewarded with an incredibly entertaining match-up.

Winnipeg was able to come out with a 3-2 shootout win, after tying the game in the closing moments of overtime.

“We expect every game with the Ice to go that way,” Hildebrand said.

“They’re going to be one-goal games. We’re two very evenly matched teams, teams that are built similarly and play a similar style. It’s destined games we play against each other are going to end up that way.”

The Selects were on the road this weekend, picking up wins against the Pembina Valley Hawks Oct. 25 and the Interlake Lightning Oct. 26. They’ll next be at home Nov. 11 for the first re-match of last year’s final against the Winnipeg Avros.