Alberta
RDP Queens to face Olds College Broncos in ACAC Championship series
RDP Queens Hockey ACAC Championship Preview
Brent Forster – Red Deer Polytechnic Athletics
Red Deer, AB – With the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) Women’s Hockey Championship approaching on Friday, the Red Deer Polytechnic Queens have been diligently preparing for their best-of-five final.
“We all have the same goal and same mindset of what we want to achieve,” said Mary Hirsch, a veteran forward. “[Coach] Kelly [Coulter] holds us accountable for what we need to get done and it benefits us in the long run.”
Hirsch (24)
The RDP Queens (11-2-2) solidified first in the standings with a 2-1 victory over the Olds College Broncos on March 4. With that accomplishment, the Queens received a bye to the championship final. Their opponent was undetermined until March 13 when the third seed Broncos (6-8-1) dropped the second place NAIT Ooks (11-4-0) in the best-of-three semi-final.
“The first week we made sure we skated and had intense practices because we didn’t know who we would face,” said Kelly Coulter, Red Deer Polytechnic Queens Hockey Head Coach.
Madison Fox (1): 0.83 goals against average & 0.965 save percentage
With the Olds College Broncos’ victory, Coulter and the Queens began strategizing specifically for their opponent.
“This week of preparation is more geared towards how we want to play against Olds,” explained Coulter, who led the Queens to their last ACAC gold medal in 2016. “We play them a little different compared to how we would play against NAIT. This week is about refining some of things we do.”
The Queens won all five regular season meetings against the Broncos. It was evident that the Olds College Broncos’ focus was on a specific style of defence.
“The Broncos are a hard team to get a lot of shots on net. They do a good job of collapsing to the net front,” added Coulter, an ACAC Women’s Hockey Coach of the Year recipient. “They defend well. It will be a good matchup for us – a good challenge and we’re looking forward to it.”
Hirsch noted a few areas that the RDP Queens will concentrate on in the offensive zone.
“Moving the puck fast and possession behind the net will be huge, along with isolating players so we can work on a two-on-one or some kind of attacking strategy where we get a better scoring chance,” explained Hirsch, a Bachelor of Science Nursing student from Calgary. “In practice, we have worked on a lot of tipping, battling in front of the net, getting open, so those will be huge.”
Making fast and calculated decisions will be crucial.
“That’s something that we want to be aware of, looking for passing lanes and getting shots off quickly,” said Coulter. “Putting pucks on net always results in good things.”
While the Queens were the best defensive team this season, allowing only 0.91 goals against, Hirsch identified the importance of finding ways to score in the series.
“With Olds, you can’t let them hang around. They work really hard and have a good core,” said Hirsch, who led the Queens during the regular season with 12 points. “The games have all been really close and have all come down to the third period, so we need a goal scoring mentality.”
During the regular season, the RDP Queens’ offence ranked second with 2.4 goals per game. The Broncos had the third best offence (2.33 goals for) and third best defence (2.73 goals against).
The extra week off has allowed the Queens to recover from the intense 15 game regular season.
“Everyone is healthy,” added Coulter. “We have a really good bill of health, so we’re happy that it’s at the right time.”
The coaches and student-athletes have expanded their preparation to off the ice, as well.
“We did a team builder before the start of the postseason to go over our habits that we’ve talked about all year,” said Coulter. “Then we had some systematic and team discussions about making sure that everyone is pulling the rope the same way.”
First-year defender Alex Black (12)
The student-athletes have made decisions and conducted themselves for the betterment of the Red Deer Polytechnic Queens.
“We have been going to the gym and working out, including team workouts Sunday mornings,” added Hirsch. “We are constantly putting the team first, so the big thing this year is sacrifice. We have a team first mentality to get us all the way to the end.”
Despite a hectic academic program, Hirsch is concentrating on being a supportive and productive member of the Queens.
“I’m full-time in my clinical placement right now, so I’ve been really busy, but when I get to practice, I’m focusing on what’s ahead of me and just trying to encourage my teammates,” said Hirsch, who is planning to graduate from the RDP Queens at the end of the season. “Just having that mindset is really huge and knowing that I’ve prepared the last four years for this, so I’m ready to go.”
The cancelation of the 2019/2020 championship and 2020/2021 ACAC season due to COVID-19 makes the ability to compete this season even more special.
“We are looking forward to getting started. The girls have worked hard all year, so it’ll be nice to get to the end and have a final this season,” said Coulter. “Last year was a tough year for everyone, so I think everyone will be excited to play for a championship.”
The Red Deer Polytechnic Queens will host the Olds College Broncos in game one of the best-of-five championship final on Friday, March 18 at 7 pm. Then game two will shift to Olds on Sunday at 7 pm. The remainder of the series will be completed the following week.
Tickets are available online.
From the Fraser Institute
By Spencer Gudewill and Tegan Hill
Last November, Premier Danielle Smith announced that her government will give up to $1.8 billion in subsidies to Dow Chemicals, which plans to expand a petrochemical project northeast of Edmonton. In other words, $1.8 billion in corporate welfare.
And this is just one example of corporate welfare paid for by Albertans.
According to a recent study published by the Fraser Institute, from 2007 to 2021, the latest year of available data, the Alberta government spent $31.0 billion (inflation-adjusted) on subsidies (a.k.a. corporate welfare) to select firms and businesses, purportedly to help Albertans. And this number excludes other forms of government handouts such as loan guarantees, direct investment and regulatory or tax privileges for particular firms and industries. So the total cost of corporate welfare in Alberta is likely much higher.
Why should Albertans care?
First off, there’s little evidence that corporate welfare generates widespread economic growth or jobs. In fact, evidence suggests the contrary—that subsidies result in a net loss to the economy by shifting resources to less productive sectors or locations (what economists call the “substitution effect”) and/or by keeping businesses alive that are otherwise economically unviable (i.e. “zombie companies”). This misallocation of resources leads to a less efficient, less productive and less prosperous Alberta.
And there are other costs to corporate welfare.
For example, between 2007 and 2019 (the latest year of pre-COVID data), every year on average the Alberta government spent 35 cents (out of every dollar of business income tax revenue it collected) on corporate welfare. Given that workers bear the burden of more than half of any business income tax indirectly through lower wages, if the government reduced business income taxes rather than spend money on corporate welfare, workers could benefit.
Moreover, Premier Smith failed in last month’s provincial budget to provide promised personal income tax relief and create a lower tax bracket for incomes below $60,000 to provide $760 in annual savings for Albertans (on average). But in 2019, after adjusting for inflation, the Alberta government spent $2.4 billion on corporate welfare—equivalent to $1,034 per tax filer. Clearly, instead of subsidizing select businesses, the Smith government could have kept its promise to lower personal income taxes.
Finally, there’s the Heritage Fund, which the Alberta government created almost 50 years ago to save a share of the province’s resource wealth for the future.
In her 2024 budget, Premier Smith earmarked $2.0 billion for the Heritage Fund this fiscal year—almost the exact amount spent on corporate welfare each year (on average) between 2007 and 2019. Put another way, the Alberta government could save twice as much in the Heritage Fund in 2024/25 if it ended corporate welfare, which would help Premier Smith keep her promise to build up the Heritage Fund to between $250 billion and $400 billion by 2050.
By eliminating corporate welfare, the Smith government can create fiscal room to reduce personal and business income taxes, or save more in the Heritage Fund. Any of these options will benefit Albertans far more than wasteful billion-dollar subsidies to favoured firms.
Authors:
Alberta
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