Westlock’s Senior Warriors ripped the Whitecourt Wild Saturday night at the Rotary Spirit Centre, posting a 9-4 win and a taking a 2-0 lead in their best-of-five North Central Hockey League semifinal series.
In front of a huge local — and vocal — crowd, the Warriors never really let up the pressure on the visitors, owning every inch of the ice in a high quality display.
“It was a whole team effort. From the goaltender right out to the fourth line, everybody contributed to the win,” said Warriors coach Joe Kuhar.
By the end of the first period with the score 4-1, the Wild had already benched their starting goalie.
Every Warriors line was firing as Evan Kuhar picked up a pair of goals and two matching assists while Dave Nimmo also scored twice and chipped in to help out on a Tanner Sohn shot that found the net in the last minute of the first.
The Warriors really turned the screws in the second period, piling on four more goals to have the game sealed after 40 minutes.
It was only then the home team started to slacken up a little, being outscored in the final frame — 3-1 — although by that stage the damage was done.
“The last part of the third period we sort of let off on the gas and that gave the guys a little bit of life,” Kuhar said.
“It ended up being a little closer than the game should have.”
Whitecourt tried to play a physical game but, it was the Warriors who took the upper hand.
“The idea was to keep our physical game up and show them that we weren’t going to let them come at us lightly. We were going to match what they were going to give to us,” Kuhar said.
The hometown support played a big part in the Warriors dominance as the local lads were focused on paying back the crowd who had turned out on a chilly Saturday night to cheer them on.
“The highlight, more than anything, was seeing the large crowd out last night,” Kuhar said.
“That was really encouraging, the guys really noticed that and that gave them that energy level to have a good showing for the fans.”
Game 1 of the best-of-five series was played the night before in Whitecourt and was a bigger blowout with the Warriors winning 9-1 in an even more physical encounter.
Again the Wild tried to bang but the Warriors were up to the challenge and won every period.
Both teams now get seven days rest with Game 3 set for Spirit Centre on Saturday, Feb. 28 at 8.30 p.m.
“We want to see it wrapped up at home, we don’t enjoy going to their barn, for a number of reasons, so we want to wrap up the series in front of our fans,” Kuhar said.
