St. Paul wins 3rd Battle of the Lakeland

The St. Paul Canadiens took game 3 of the Battle of the Lakeland series against their Northeast Alberta Jr B Hockey league (NEAJBHL) rivals, the Cold Lake Ice on Friday night. Head Coach of the St. Paul Canadiens, Joe Young says the starts was critical for the team.

The Cold Lake Ice opened the scoring with a goal from  Donavan Bibeau 3:28 into the first thanks to team mates Jason Hamilton and Coltan Buchta for the assist. However, the Canadiens quickly responded and advanced out of the first, says Young, “the guys kept working and I knew once we got that first goal we were going to come up more. Once we got ahead two or three goals it’s pretty much set for us.”

Jared Malo with Ryley Wozniak answered the Ice at 9:10 in the first, then Bailey Lonsberry advanced less than two minutes later with the help of Brodin Ference. Wozniak picked up another apple before the close of the first on the Canadiens forth goal of the evening off of Morgan Greve.

High scoring and high hitting action in the first period was all-but halted in the remaining 40 minutes of play by the referees. Head Coach of the Jr B Ice, Scott Hood, says he felt his club played well through an intense game. “You have to play intense when you’re up against a team like this. The difference here for us was, we had made some mistakes with the puck and the pucks going in the back of our net. They’re a great team, they’re aware of their chances and they keep fighting, right until the end.”

A more chill second period saw only one goal, which came from Canadiens Kona Jackson just over halfway through the period, with the help of Ryan Rancier, to make it a 4-1 game. “We lost our chance in the second to close the gap,” explains the Cold Lake coach, “then we lost our sails in the third.”

The third was a big period; fights, hits, scuffles, shots and goals, it had it all. Including a coincidental penalty on Morgan Greve (roughing) and Jason Hamilton (holding) that Coach Hood didn’t agree with – and he showed it. The ref, none too pleased with Hood’s display of dismay tossed the coach from the game.

The Canadiens took full advantage and upped their energy to bring in back-to-back goals from  Dyson Roy just seconds apart at 15:02 (unassisted on the power play) and 15:47 (Braydon Burak) to close the game with a 6-1 victory for the Habs. “Roy is a big part of this team, he has been for the last two years,” the Canadiens’ coach says the club has been focusing on the power play and special teams during practice and attributes that to a successful third period.

The next Battle of the Lakeland is December 10th in Cold Lake at Imperial Oil Place. WIN tickets on LCN & watch live coverage of the game and interviews on LCN’s socials.