Twenty talented players and three coaches are getting ready to represent all of southeast Saskatchewan on the ice next week.

The 2018 Saskatchewan Winter Games get underway from February 18th - 24th in North Battleford and the Team South East hockey squad is ready to lay it on the line to try and grab a gold medal.

"I'm really excited and looking forward to it," expressed Kyle Hoium of Midale, who will be coaching the team along with Todd White of Warman and Tim Bear of Ochapowace.

"I think we'll have a really competitive team and we have a great group of kids, so that makes it fun." 

Bienfait's Mason Kukura Will Represent Team South East.

READ MORE: Team South East - Synchronized Swimming

Teams are not permitted to practice before the Winter Games, so having the team gel together quickly will be key to winning. The good news for Team South East is that many of their players are already playing on the same team, with nine athletes currently playing for the TS&M AA Bantam Bruins in Estevan.

"With a lot of the kids playing either AA Bantam together or House Bantam together, we're going to try and ride the kids together as much as we can and hopefully it will work out," adds Hoium.

"But we've drawn up some systems and emailed them out to the kids, then we'll go over it on the bus up to North Battleford."

With the chance to win a medal at the Saskatchewan Winter Games, while the 2018 Pyeongchang Games are ongoing, Coach Hoium hopes that the players take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

"I think our team will be really competitive," states Hoium. "We have some real high-end forwards, our goaltending will be really strong and our defence is right there too."

Team South East will play three games against their division which includes Saskatoon, South West and Rivers West. Then, each team will face one team from the other division that finished in the same spot, with the championship game at 11:30am on February 21st.

Monday, February 19th

9:00am - vs Saskatoon

4:30pm - vs South West

Tuesday, Feburary 20th

4:30pm - vs Rivers West

Wednesday, February 21st

Either 8:30am or 11:30am - TBA

FULL SCHEDULE - MALE HOCKEY