The St. Paul Canadiens extended their win streak to nine last Friday night, besting the Vermilion Tigers, but the streak snapped the following night with a loss to the league’s top-ranked team, the Wainwright Bisons.
The Canadiens have come a long way with their recent winning ways, with assistant coach Corey deMoissac saying that he’d venture a guess that it’s been eight or nine years since the team had such a long winning streak.
“The players are motivated to make a statement this year,” he said, referencing the team’s recent hard years. “It’s been a long road for a lot of these guys. They came in two years ago, and they took some lumps. Now it’s time. They’re older – they’re starting to give the lumps back out to some of these teams.”
On Friday night, the Canadiens hit the road for a ‘home’ game in Elk Point, timed to coincide with the town’s annual Extravaganza event.
St. Paul would notch a goal in the first and second period each, courtesy of Dyson Roy and Mikael Beaudoin respectively, and another three in the third period, with Roddy MacDougall putting in two and Tyler Bunce netting one. The team held the visiting Vermilion Tigers off to getting on the scoreboard only once in the second period, to seal the 5-1 win.
On Saturday, the team was in Wainwright to take on the Bisons, who currently sit at the top of the North Eastern Alberta Junior B Hockey League standings, with a 19-1 record.
The Canadiens’ Dyson Roy would score in the first, while his teammate Jalel Abougouche would find the back of the net twice in the third, but it wouldn’t be enough to beat the Bisons, who went on to win 7-3.
But deMoissac says on the bright side, despite playing a short bench and having guys out with injuries, the Canadiens worked hard and outshot the Bisons, but things just didn’t go their way on the night.
“Obviously, the Bisons are a good team, we take nothing from them,” he said. “We’re going to strive for and try to get at those games.”
