St. Paul Wins Back-to-Back Home Openers Against Killiam

The Jr B Canadiens win 6-1 and 4-2 against Wheat Kings

“It was pretty exciting! You play a tough team like Killiam to start the year, two straight games, you want to win one of the two and you don’t expect to win both,” it may not have been expected by Head Coach of the Canadiens, Joe Young, but it’s what happened this weekend. St. Paul started by travelling to Killiam on Friday evening, then invited the Wheat Kings to the Clancy Richard Arena for a repeat on Saturday.

It shows the kind of determination we’re going to have this year. -Joe Young Head Coach St. Paul Jr B Canadiens

Opening up the season in another’s barn is definitely “different”, laughs Coach Young, “we haven’t really done that since I’ve been here.” Young is in his fifth year of coaching the club, “I think it was good for the guys. You get on a road trip right away, and you get familiar with each other.” The game opened with a couple of St. Paul boys, Roddy MacDougall with the goal at 16:03 and Ryley Wozniak picking up the assist.

Then in the second, it was a pair of Bonnyville boys to put in the second goal of the game. Brayden Goulet fresh off AAA Midget got the goal with the assist to Braydon Burak. The Wheat Kings would break up the scoring with Craig Lynes making it a 2-1 game from friends Landon Pilger and Clay Lang. Goulet opened the gap to 3-1 with a goal off Bonnyville boy, Ryan Rancier, then came an unassisted beauty from Morgan Greve.

The third came much like the second with hometown boy, Arron Gagne getting an unassisted goal at 2:19. Killiam’s Tyler Sparrow had an unassisted goal before Burak with the help of Dyson Roy finished the game with a goal to put the final score at 6-2.

I think it was a blessing that we got to open on the road, had a successful night & carry it over to our Home Opener. – Joe Young Head Coach St. Paul Jr B Canadiens.

The Wheat Kings would open the scoring at the Clancy on Saturday from Pilger  at 10:48 in the first. The Canadiens would wait until the second to answer back with a goal from Wozniak , the assists going to Kona Jackson and Captain Zach Sylvestre. “He’s an exceptional leader, the guys really look up to him,” says Coach Young of Sylvestre who is returning to the team for his third season as a Canadien.”He leads by example on the ice. He’s very vocal and the guys seem to be following what he says; that’s what the captain is all about, you have to lead the team and lead them in the right direction.”

The Canadiens really came out in the third with Roddy MacDougall starting the rally with the help of Wozniak  and Zach Bendall. Wozniak and  MacDougall would make it a 3-1 game at 12:14. The Canadiens continued their rally with a nice pop from Goulet and Bendall. Killiam was able to put one more on the board late in the game with less than two minutes left from Pilger to close the game 4-2.

“I’m really impressed with our goal tending and our defense this year,” says Young, “we gave up three goals to a team is pretty high powered. They have a 50 goal scorer on their team, from last year. I’m very impressed with our defense so far.”

The Canadiens are heavy with local talent this year. On the roster are six St. Paul players, five Bonnyville players, one from Elk Point, one from Goodfish and one from Glendon. “That’s really nice to see, to have that local talent.” Young said training camp attracted a lot of local talent, “it definitely says something about this organization. We’ve made a step in the right direction, kids want to play for us this year!”

The Canadiens have two home games this upcoming weekend Saddle Lake on Friday and Cold Lake on Saturday. Both are heated rivalry games that are guaranteed crowd-pleasers. WIN tickets to the games on LCN -> click to enter now!