Leadership Group Shines through Pontiacs’ Road Trip

Bonnyville falls 5-1 in Drumheller

Associate Coach for the Bonnyville Jr A Pontiacs, Larry Draper says the team gained a lot from their southern road trip this past week. The trip which took them to Calgary, Canmore, Brooks, and Drumheller in a matter of five days, ended last night with a loss to the Drumheller Dragons 5-1. Not something to celebrate, unless you’re the Pontiacs and you take every game, win or lose, as an opportunity to learn and grow as a team.

Leadership

The road trip also opened up the leadership core’s ability to motivate and help the team advance, says Draper. “The leadership group, with Ryan Symington, Erik Donald, Alden Dupuis, Gen Bryshun, and Ryan Piche did an incredible job of helping with the team and pointing everybody in the right direction.” Draper explains for the first two days of the road trip he was solo, with Head Coach Rick Swan involved in the World Jr A Challenge, and the assistant coaches working day jobs. “I was by myself. When you’re running 20 players,” Draper laughs, “it can be done; but our leadership group was unreal.” The leaders stepped up and helped Draper, “all of us were pulling in the same direction.”

“That’s the key to this past week, that we all came together as a team,” Draper says road trip can serve to increase team bonding and he really saw that bond grow over the last few days. “Maybe we didn’t win the last two games, but the leaders understood how a team needed to be run. While Coach Swan was away, everybody did what they needed to do. In that way, it was very successful.”

Saturday: Drumheller Dragons

“We played well to start the game,” the Pontiacs out-shot the Dragons 18-6 to start the game, says Draper. The Pontiacs were on defense off the start, with a goal from the Dragons’ Markus Boguslavsky opening the game 1:51 into the first. Isaac Saniga from Jake Gresh and Derek Brown responded at 15:59 to close the period tied at one. “Then we got into a little bit of penalty trouble,” says Draper.

The Yaks held off the Dragons during  Ryan Symington’s roughing penalty 6:44 in the second, but weren’t as successful when Riley Smith took two minutes for roughing at 14:07.  Drumheller’s Brett Campbell scored on the power play to break the tie and then  Tyler Kreklewich advanced the Dragons to a 3-1 lead, while  Symington was in the box again for elbowing.

The team’s penalty kill skills were stronger in the third, not allowing any power play goals on four minutes of penalties; however two goals did fly past Sandro Silvestre, from Chad Harrison and  Tyson Scott to close the game 5-1 for Drumheller.

“We played four games in five nights and the guys just start to wear down. When [Drumheller] had the man advantage, they scored a couple goals. That was the difference in the game,” explains Draper. Some of the Pontiacs key players, Charlie Gawlecki, Luke Isreal, and Brandon Whistle were all out of Saturday’s game due to injuries; which also had an impact.

The squad has returned home, confirms Draper, and will be practicing this week in the Cenvus Arena at the Centennial Centre; while the World Jr A Challenge is being played out at the RJ Lalonde.

The team hits the road again next week travelling to Calgary, Okotoks, and Olds, before enjoying a well-deserved two-week Christmas break.