Mariners seeking continued success

Yarmouth squad had its most successful regular season in its 20-year history

After wrapping up their most successful regular season ever, the Mariners are now working on that continued success during the playoffs.

The team opened the Metalfab MHL best-of-sevengame playoff series at home on Friday, March 17, with a 6-1 win over the Pictou County Crushers.

Game 2 was on the road in Pictou on Sunday, March 19, which the Mariners won 5-3.

Game 3 of the series was being played at the Mariner Centre on Tuesday evening, after this newspaper's Monday press deadline.

The Yarmouth Jr. A Mariners finished the regular season atop of the MHL with 84 points after winning 41 of its 52 games during the regular MHL season. The Mariners also set a team franchise record with its .808 win percentage.

The Mariners were ranked in 10th place in the CJHL's final rankings of junior A teams across Canada.

The Mariners' regular season performance gives them home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs.

Prior to the end of the regular season, Saltwire Network spoke with Mariners head coach and GM Laurie Barron about the Mariners season. Here's a Q&A from that exchange.

QUESTION: What has this season been like for the team?

LAURIE BARRON (LB):

You obviously don't go into every game thinking, ‘Okay, we've got this in the bag.' This league is a tough league to win in. There's no gimmies. Obviously every night is a battle.

Q: Still, you have won a lot of games this season. What is something else you attribute that to, aside from just playing good, smart hockey? LB:

The biggest thing is our leadership, for me. I believe that there's six or eight guys in the dressing room that are more important than I am. Our leadership group has been great this year. The captains and the 20-year-olds have done a great job.

Q: What has it been like coaching this season’s team in comparison to past seasons?

LB: This has been a very easy group to coach. They're pretty self-motivated. They come to work every day. They work hard both on and off the ice so credit to them, they've done a great job.

Q: What do you foresee the playoffs will be like? LB:

We've got a good group and a good number of players around that are still smarting a little bit from last year's loss. So we've used that as a bit of a battle cry.

Q: Like any season, there were times that you had to contend with injuries that took some players out of the line-up. How do you push through those times? LB: Finding ways to win with big pieces out of the game has

been big for us. Other guys have stepped up and jumped into bigger roles and filled in very good. That's been a big part of what we do.

Q: This year, aside from what’s happening on the ice, it’s been different off the ice too, in terms of the new ownership of the team, which you and some of the other coaching staff are a part of. How would you say that’s been going? It seems like there’s been an even greater vibe and atmosphere in the Mariners Centre this season. LB:

For families and fans, a couple of things that we tried to do was cut ticket prices down to try to help out, because prices are going up with everything these days. We tried our best to make it affordable. Also, we switched

our home games from 7:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. to try and help out younger families. We've also been giving away tickets to minor hockey to try and get more minor hockey players involved in watching Mariners games. Another thing that I think has made a big difference is we've worked with minor hockey to change their logo. So minor hockey players are now wearing the same Yarmouth Jr. A Mariners logo.