The Saddle Lake Warriors Junior B hockey team played and won the team’s first game of 2011 against local rivals, the St. Paul Canadiens, last Friday at Saddle Lake’s Manitou Kihew arena. The Warriors would end the night with a 6 – 2 score for the team’s seventh win of the season.
The Warriors’ Talon Cardinal opened up scoring with his seventh goal of the season with an assist from Jordan Moosewah at 10:30 in the first, but the Canadiens managed to tie it up with a power play goal from Nathan Gardiner less than six minutes later.
The Warriors went one up on the Canadiens with 0:05 to go in the first with a goal from Jared Cunningham to end the first period at 2 - 1.
The second period belonged to the Warriors with the team scoring two goals, courtesy of Cole Steinhauer and Darian Cardinal, to take the score to 4 - 1. In the third period, the Warriors’ defenceman Bruce Baptiste put one in the net at 18:02 with an assist from Josh Lapatak, and a minute later, while the Canadiens’ defence was struggling to regroup, Cunningham would score his second goal for the night.
The Canadiens’ Tyler Gamble scored an unassisted goal at 15:19 but the Warriors shut down the Canadiens’ offence for the rest of the period to hand the team its second loss of 2011.
“It’s our first game back (since the Christmas holidays),” noted Warriors’ head coach Stan Olson after the game, adding, “Both teams are a little rusty.”
But he was pleased with how his team performed, particularly with three of its top players missing from the game. Winston Lapatak, the Warriors’ general manager, explained that two players on the team are still away for the Christmas holidays, but the team managed to have all four lines for the game. The Warriors team now has its 23 players on the roster finalized.
“They looked good,” Lapatak said of the four lines. “We had a lot of missed chances after a long off with Dec. 12 being the last game, but we’re hoping to build momentum as we get closer to the playoffs.”
The Warriors are currently in seventh place in the North East Alberta Junior B Hockey League. The team’s Saturday’s game against the Bisons was postponed due to the bad weather which hit most of Alberta over the weekend. However, the Warriors did win its away game against the Thorhild Titans on Sunday, with a score of 6-2, for a three game winning streak.
The Warriors will face off against Vermilion Tigers this coming Saturday in an away game, and will host the Killam Wheat Kings at Frog Lake’s hockey arena on Sunday at 6 p.m. The game will be the first of two played at Frog Lake. The next game at Frog Lake takes place Feb. 6 against the Cold Lake Ice.
“It’s a great opportunity for the community at Frog Lake to see NEAJBHL action,” said Lapatak, adding, “From everything I hear, they have a beautiful facility and top of the line ice.
“We’re hopeful to go give the people at Frog Lake an entertaining contest.”
