      Players, coaches and fans of the Wheatland Wild 11 hockey team travelled to Portage La Prairie, MB on Easter weekend for the 2019 Portage Cup championship – with the Wild capturing the Cup.
            The Wheatland Wild initiation team is managed by Justin Young of Moosomin. Head Coach is Chris Light of Carlyle and assistant coaches are Dayle Wilcox of Moose Jaw and Brodie McColl of Redvers. The team is comprised of boys from various communities in Saskatchewan who were born in 2011.
           The Wild's first game was on Friday, March 30, where they allowed the opposition to score four unanswered goals in the first period. This was probably due to the fact that some of the team had never skated together before, but members of the Wild were able to come together as a team in the second and third periods to pull off a 6-5 win.
           The boys had an early morning game on Saturday, March 31, which was a real nail-biter with the game ending in a shoot-out, resulting in a second win for the Wild.The team dominated in the next game, to finish first in their pool.
           Sunday morning saw the Wild in the play-offs. Their semi-final game was against the second-place team from the other pool. Again, they were able to come away victorious with the final score being 15-6.
           This put them in the final game, playing against the tournament's other undefeated team. This game was a real barn-burner, with the score see-sawing back and forth between the two teams. With 40 seconds of regulation time remaining, Carlyle's Owen Light came through for the team with the tie-breaking goal. The final score was 11-10, with the Wheatland Wild winners of the 2018 Portage Cup.
