Two hockey teams from Okotoks will be heading up north this weekend to take part in the Alberta Winter Games.

The U13 AA Raiders and the U15 AA Oilers will be representing, not just Okotoks, but our whole region during the competition.

"So, what happened was Hockey Alberta and the province of Alberta divided the province into eight zones. Obviously, Calgary and Edmonton being the two biggest zones and then, we're in Zone 2. They call it Big Country," explains Head Coach Daron Dumanski. "And December 19th was the cutoff, and it went off league standings. Whichever team had the best win over games played percentage got the zone spot and that was luckily us."

With only one team being selected from each zone, Dumanski credits the team's incredible start to the season as the reason why they made it to the Winter games.

"We had an unreal start. We started out 12-0-2 in regular season, which pretty much locked us into [the] Winter Games," says Dumanski. "We have done well in tournaments. We are sitting first in the league right now. Us and Wheatland are battling it out for first place. But overall, it's been a great season. Kids have played really well, came together as a group. And we are going in the right direction here, we are on a ten-game unbeaten streak in the league, heading into the Winter games."

The eight teams will be placed into two pools of four teams, where each team is guaranteed to play four round-robin games.

The top two teams in each pool will proceed to the medal rounds, where one team will be crowned provincial champions.

Dumanski adds this will be a great experience for these kids, because it helps kids learn how to play consistently during competitions like this.

The U13 AA Raiders had a bit of a different experience making it to the Winter Games.

With only two teams in their zone, the Raiders had to beat out the girls from Airdrie in a tournament last December.

"We had to do a best of three series and then the winner of that advanced to the Alberta Winter Games," says the manager of the U13 AA Raiders Tricia Arsenault. "We beat them the first game. And then the second game went into overtime. And then after overtime, it went into a shootout, and we actually won in a shootout. So, it was very exciting to get it done in two games."

Arsenault says that while the team is in a bit of a rut at the moment, she is hoping that the Winter Games will see them put some notches into the win column.

"We will have three round-robin games. We have two on Saturday, one on Sunday, and then the playoffs are on Monday. And that's for the top four teams," Arsenault explains.

Because they are the only AA team in the area with the Alberta Female Hockey League, the Raiders have athletes from Okotoks, Diamond Valley, Foothills County, Nanton, Vulcan, Chestermere, and Strathmore.

Both teams are getting bused up to Grand Prairie on Friday morning and start competing Saturday morning.

The Alberta Winter Games run from February 16th to 19th. 

Head over to the Winter Games website to check out the full competition schedule.