Ice Bring Home a 5-1 Win

Jr B Ice travel to Vegreville and defeat Rangers 5-1

The Rangers opened up scoring, on Saturday evening, just 1:38 into the game, with a goal from Jesse Budinski. Head Coach of the Cold Lake Ice, Scott Hood, says after the club skated off some bus legs in the first, it was a pretty solid effort all around, that helped bring home a 5-1 win in Vegreville. “We didn’t play the greatest in the first. We weren’t working hard, we kinda let them do their thing and didn’t play our game.”

The squad refocused and came out of the gate firing in the second, lead by Chase Brown, who with the help of Mikhail Desjarlais and Mackenzie Zarowny put in the first of five Ice goals at 5:07. Just over a minute later Jason Hamilton got the go-ahead goal with the help of Alex Antal and Zarowny. Followed by veteran line of Brown, Hamilton and  captain Curtis Witney with another goal from Brown. One more beauty soared past Veg’s goalie, Jaden Saik before the close of the second, from Brody Rosychuk with Desjarlais  and Terrence Gadwa for the assists.

The Ice would score one final goal halfway through the third, by Desjarlais with the assists to Brown and Zarowny, to end the game 5-1. “Chase Brown, he’s an agitator. He’s a third, forth line guy, but he scored two goals. He’s a valuable guy to us.”

“We have to take advantage of all our scoring chances and play the way we can.” Coach Hood says despite the score, the Rangers put in a strong effort and it was a hard-fought battle, “they’re a hardworking team and they are physical. Every chance they get to hit somebody, that’s what they’ll do. It caught us off guard a bit and we stood around and watched them a bit.” The Rangers stacked up 54 minutes in the penalty box with 20 of that time coming from two game misconducts. The first game misconduct early in the second period from Vegreville’s Zachary Flasha-Lupashuc who put ’em up against Tyler Logan. Flasha-Lupashuc  received 19 minutes from the tossle for, instigator of a fight minor, fighting major, aggressor of fight minor and game misconduct. While the Cold Lake Ice’s Logan received a game misconduct and checking from behind, totaling 15 minutes. “They got frustrated a bit, when we got up, and that’s the way we’re going to have to continue to play.”

Cleaning up the game is something Coach Hood has been focused on, “we were doing pretty good in the first four games. I think we’re lowest in the league, which is different than year’s past.” The coach says there’s always elements of the game that can be fixed, “there’s still stuff to work on, we’re not the top of the league or the bottom of the league; we just gotta keep plugging away.”

“It’s an all around team effort from our guys; even if a guy isn’t scoring, he’s out there working on his line. We’re not giving up [high scores] where it’s costing us. We’re not getting beat up, the lines are doing their jobs.” This week Hood will be working on some power play and special team drills with the team before they meet the Warriors in Saddle Lake on Friday.