Skip to content

Up and down weekend for Warriors

Nathan Brown races for the net with two Devon Barons players on his tail. The Warriors lost Oct. 11 game at the Rotary Spirit Centre 5-4, but recovered the next day with a 4-3 win over the Eckville Eagles.
senior warriors
Nathan Brown races for the net with two Devon Barons players on his tail. The Warriors lost Oct. 11 game at the Rotary Spirit Centre 5-4, but recovered the next day with a 4-3 win over the Eckville Eagles.

 Nathan Brown races for the net with two Devon Barons players on his tail. The Warriors lost Oct. 11 game at the Rotary Spirit Centre 5-4, but recovered the next day with a 4-3 win over the Eckville Eagles.Nathan Brown races for the net with two Devon Barons players on his tail. The Warriors lost Oct. 11 game at the Rotary Spirit Centre 5-4, but recovered the next day with a 4-3 win over the Eckville Eagles.

The Westlock Warriors headed into their respective Thanksgiving dinners last weekend with an early season record of 2-1 in the North Central Hockey League and coach Mike Ivey says the team definitely wants to keep the momentum going.

The senior ‘AA’ club had two back-to-back home games at the Rotary Spirit Centre last weekend, losing 5-4 to the Devon Barons Oct. 11, but redeeming themselves with a one-goal win of their own Oct. 12, clipping the Eckville Eagles 4-3

“Friday wasn’t our best game, but we turned it on at times. That game was tough. Devon’s a good team, they’re going to be one of our closest match-ups this year, for sure. It gets pretty heated and pretty scrappy,” said Ivey, who doubles as first-line centreman for the Warriors.

Playing the Barons tends to get the Warriors worked up, he said, pointing out the Warriors' 12 penalties during the game with half of them going to Zach Mills. Ivey said the rivalry between the two teams is likely to heat up and continue as the season moves on, but that's nothing new.

Goaltending continues to be solid for the Warriors. Jordan Brand was in the net for both games, keeping out 28 of the 32 shots against the Barons and another 30 of 33 against the Eagles. The teams were on par for shots on net Friday night, but the Barons' goalie managed to keep one more out for the Devon team.

Five minutes into the first period, the Barons were already up 2-0, but Mills put the Warriors on the scoreboard soon after with assists from Jake Chizma and Warriors rookie Tyler Kampjies.

The Barons scored another before Ivey scored his second of the season with six minutes left to end the first period at 3-2.

The Warriors came out revitalized in the second. Rylan Stoddart evened out the score for the Warriors, and Brady Ducharme then put them ahead 4-3 with a power play goal, but the Barons then scored twice in the last five minutes of the second and both teams went without a goal in the third.

“At the end, we put up 12 shots in the third period but just couldn’t buy a goal,” said Ivey.

Ivey called the Barons game a good learning experience, and said on Saturday, the Warriors focused on discipline to avoid the penalty box, and to hang on to the puck.

“Eckville has been a good team for years, very tough to beat. They have some big, strong boys and they move the puck so well. It was going to be a good game, we knew what we were going to come in with. It’s Thanksgiving weekend, so you’re going to have guys unavailable. I think both teams were missing a few guys.

“It was a gritty effort for sure, kind of tight start to finish. We didn’t start great, they got on early,” said Ivey.

The first goal of the game came from the Eagles during a power play, who followed it up with another within two minutes. The Warriors then stepped up and brought it to 2-1, thanks to Nicholas Bourgeois with 58 seconds left in the first period.

The Warriors had the momentum going into the second and four minutes in, Ivey evened the score with a power play goal. Next came a goal from Kelin Hryculk, but the Eagles soon scored two to bring them even with the home team.

Hryculk stepped up again and with an assist from Ivey, scored the determining goal of the game. He was a big scorer in the Warriors’ season opener against Bonnyville Oct. 5, netting five points, including a hat trick for the 10 Warriors goals that night.

“Last night was a complete team effort. I thought we played a way better full game, we played a lot smarter, stayed out of the box a lot more and our power play was really good. … We kind of wore them down. They got tired as the game went along and we worked that to our advantage. We seemed to have more legs and a lot more energy,” said Ivey.

The Warriors will now hit the road in the coming weeks, heading to Blackfalds Oct. 20 to take on the Wranglers before visiting Eckville to tangle with the Eagles again on Oct. 27.

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks