After winning league title Trappers refocus on even bigger prize

It’s now an overused meme to poke fun of the over hyped and often repetitive Fast and Furious Franchise, but nonetheless the words still ring true by Vin Diesel’s character Dominic Toretto - there’s nothing stronger than family. That’s the mentality this year's U18 AAA Trappers have as they set their sights on competing at the U18 AAA Regional Championships in Windsor beginning on Monday.  

They really are a group that resembles a family as several of the players have been sharing a locker room together since their novice age years including Caleb Dawson, Nate Gravelle and Davis Anello. 

“This group went to the regional finals during our Atom year with pretty much the same group of guys playing together all the way through, so we really are a family,” says Anello.  

Gravelle says, “It’s special that we get another shot at this with this group of guys that I’ve grown up with.” 

Dawson recalls back in 2017, which was the last time this Trappers age group competed in a Regional Championship of this magnitude. 

“I remember that run in Atom being such a great experience and I’m hoping we can continue our success from the season at this year's tournament,” said Dawson.  

The Trappers are fresh off winning the NOHA title after toppling the Soo Jr. Greyhounds in the gold medal game on March 19, 2023. Anello says that experience should help them with the upcoming tournament.  The 2023 Trappers join the 2019 Trappers as the only Great North U18 team's in the past 20 years to capture the league title. 

“Coming off that win the boys are all dialed in. We’ve been ramping things up in practices since then and we’re just hyped. We're ready to go, we’re ready to play and we think we have a good chance to do well.’ 

Anello adds, “It took a couple of days to sink in after winning NOHA’s. But after what this team has gone through this year, it was definitely amazing to win that game, but the job is not done.  

Gravelle, who finished with 10 points in five playoff games and was named the playoff MVP en-route to the league title says, “We’re pretty excited to get going. We know the teams we’re going up against are going to be hard, but I think we have a team that has a real shot at winning.”  

Head Coach Doug Sanders says one of the hardest things for a group to do is to regain their form to go after another championship after already winning one in the same season. He says, “The goal has always been to get to the TELUS Cup, so to get everyone dialed back in and fired up for the provincials is a task all in itself.” 

It’s not just the bond of playing together for many years and winning that has helped band this brotherhood together, but a scary incident earlier in the year has brought them even closer after a night when their travel bus caught fire in the middle of the highway on the way home from a game.  

Anello says, “That really brought us closer together, we began to bond more after that happened.” 

Heading into the tournament, Sanders says one of the biggest things he’s learned about this group is the realization of how good the team can be. “We’ve got a lot of first year U18 players and to see how good they have been on the big stage and playing against big teams was a pleasant surprise.”  

Dawson scored at pace of two points per game over the course of the season, finishing with 21 goals and 44 points in 22 games. He says what has made the team successful this year is the experience of playing well in tournaments against teams in the south end of the province.

“We’ve gone through so much this year and I think that the competition we played against all year is going to help us in coming out on top,” he said.  

All season the team has stuck to its style of play, of using their bigger bodies to wear down the competition and the players say that should prove to be useful once again in Windsor.  

Anello says, “We play a big bully style of game. We use our size and we have a strong mentality to beat down the other teams.” 

“Being from the North, we’re known for being a big physical team, with skilled forwards and skilled defense,” added Gravelle.  

And Sanders says there’s no point in changing what has worked, “At this level it's all about staying the course, you don’t want to mix up to much. Just keeping things steady as she goes and as time goes on the team will ramp things up, which they have been doing since that bus accident. I think that brought them together and after Christmas we really started putting things together. We did our teaching in October through December and let the boys run with it since then. They have pushed through a lot of adversity, and we couldn’t be prouder of them.”  

Round-robin games will run Monday April 3rd-Friday April 7th between approximately 12 p.m. and 8 p.m., with each team playing once daily.