No one can catch them - first place in the Manitoba “AAA” Midget Hockey League belongs to the Eastman Selects.

“I think there's been some people around us maybe thinking it was a bit of a foregone conclusion for awhile now,” said Eastman head coach Calvin Bugyik. “I know personally I never really felt that way until maybe a week ago or so. It's nice to get it done. It's never happened for us before which is surprising in a way but it's kind of nice for this group to be the first one to do it.”

The Selects, who have yet to lose in regulation this season, clinched top spot on home ice this past weekend.

Eastman defeated the Central Plains Capitals 5-2 on Friday and then edged the Kenora Thistles 4-3 on Saturday.

The Selects, who have 37 wins, an overtime loss and two shootout losses, have four games left and are 11 points up on the second place Winnipeg Wild who have five games remaining.

“We're going to do our best to focus on what we're doing and trying to keep getting better,” answered the Eastman bench boss when asked what the plan is for their four remaining games and first place locked up. “There's some targets that we've set as a group that we'd like to take a run at here in the next two weekends and more important than that is trying to be playing good hockey when the playoffs roll around in a few weeks.”

Eastman will face the Interlake Lightning in Beausejour on Wednesday and play a pair of games in Thompson against the Norman Northstars this Saturday and Sunday.

The regular season finale is Saturday, February 20th against the Winnipeg Thrashers at the Sun Gro Centre.