The Athabasca Aces continued their strong start to the season with a pair of hard fought road games last weekend.
The Aces lost a tight game to the Hinton Heat 5-4 on Saturday night, and then rebounded with a thrilling 9-8 win over the Edson Ice.
In both games, the Aces continued to work hard and show the skill that allowed them to start the season with three consecutive wins.
“I liked the effort in both games,” said Athabasca head coach Tony Kiselyk.
Against Hinton, the coach felt his team was a victim of poor officiating. The Aces received 20 penalties while the Heat received only eight, and the home team had six two-man advantages during the game.
“I’m not a coach who complains about referees, but… I don’t know if I’ve been in a game that was so lopsided. Our guys got so frustrated; we just couldn’t do anything. It was penalty after penalty.”
As a result, the game slipped away from the Aces, even though they were ahead early on.
Though Saturday’s game wasn’t very enjoyable for the team, the same can’t be said for Sunday’s. The back and forth affair was a thriller for the spectators in Edson as well as for both teams. The Aces had the early lead only to fall behind, and by the time the third period rolled around the Aces were down 7-3. But they continued to fight back, pushing the score to 8-5. Finally, down two goals with 40 seconds remaining, the Aces pulled their goaltender and scored two goals in rapid succession to draw even and force overtime. The momentum had shifted, and the Aces struck for the winning goal 15 seconds into the extra frame.
“After such a lousy game on Saturday that left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, we had a good rebound. We were behind but we battled through,” said Kiselyk.
The Aces are now 4-1 to start the season, and continue to benefit from big offense from players like Scott Clark, who scored four goals against Edson.
“It was a pretty good road trip. Whenever you can go on the road and split the games, it’s a good thing.”
The Aces will return home on Friday, Nov. 4 to battle the Slave Lake Winterhawks. The puck will drop at 8:30 p.m. and the coach and his team are prepared for a challenge.
“It should be a barnburner,” he said. “There are no easy games. All the teams seem to be fairly evenly matched.”
