Deep Freeze

Looks like this deep freeze is here to stay for a while. Unless you’re in Florida the best place to spend a weekend when it’s this wicked cold is in a hockey arena. It’s true, ours is plenty cold inside at times, especially the north wall, but it’s still better than being outside for sure. This past weekend was great. Our AG Ross Arena had a full slate of minor hockey games from morning until early evening. Plus the Elks Senior team had  games here on  Friday and Saturday nights.

Our Novice Avalanche team started the weekend off for us with a big win over the visiting team from Mallaig. Goalie ‘Major Tom’ Melnyk between the pipe playing like a real natural. He looks like he has spent the last six years playing as a goaltender, not just one, coming up with some huge saves. Four goals each for big solid power forward Jaxon ‘Magic’ Marcoux and the string bean Theo ‘Long Horn’ Loughran. Both of them also had two assists on other goals.  A hat trick for sharp shooting sniper ‘Jesse James’ Penner  plus two assists for him as well. Playmaker  ‘Billy Bob’ Ballas with a goal and two assists. Aggressive forechecking by  Avree ‘the Aggressor’ Lesyk. She scored a goal and added an assist.  Her sidekick Ava ‘Little Angel’ Rawlake also doing some aggressive fore-checking. The Little Angel didn’t score a goal in this one but not for the lack of trying.  Lennox ‘ All Out’ St. Arnault with an assist, and he just miss on the one timer that he fanned on right in the final seconds of the game. Some fancy speed skating by  Ryder ‘ Rhino ‘ Malo who also missed on a wrist shot that was heading for the top shelf.

The Atom team was up next on Saturday hosted Cold Lake winning 6 to 2. The shots on goal almost the same for both teams, but goaltender Brendan ‘Buzz Saw’  Kadutski did a outstanding job in net for the Atom Avalanche. The play was often in the Avalanche end of the rink, but  the ‘Buzz Saw’ shut the door.  Buzz almost getting  a shut out. Cold Lake scoring their two goals very late in the game.  The Avalanche first two goals in the game scored by  Remington ‘Steel’ Reynolds who was on fire. One of them a nice one timer set up by ‘Without A Trace’ Morgan.

The second one,  Remington putting a wrister to the top shelf all by himself. Two goals each for Braylee ‘Free Willy’ Lesyk and ‘Wild Wyatt’ Fontaine.  Wild Wyatt and  Kale ‘the Hawk’ Ockerman with the other assists. On Sunday the Atoms played a real nail bitter against the Mannville Hawks. Back and forth the whole game, one team would score, then the other  until finally minute when it was all tied up at 7 goals each.  The Hawks on a two on one getting the winner with only 10 seconds left on the clock.’ Free Willy’ with two goals and two assists. ‘Wild Wyatt’ with a two goals and an assist. Denys’ the Menise ‘ Kuba and ‘Without a Trace’ Morgan with one goal each. Remington Steel’ finding the twine with one and then ringing one off the goal post. Some fantastic back checking in this game by ‘Notorious Nolan’ Ballas. Most kids skate fast going forward chasing the puck, but dog it on the backcheck.  Not so for Notorious. He motors on the backcheck faster the going forward.

The  last time the Peewee Avalanche played was  Saturday December 21,  in Bonnyville coming home with two big points. A full three weeks ago, so naturally they were a little rusty or maybe a tad bit  lazy this past Saturday when they hit the ice. You might say they still had some  turkey legs from the holidays. It showed  against the visiting team from Kitscoty who showed no mercy and gave the Avalanche a 7 to 1 spanking. ‘Top Gunner’ Crawford scoring the only goal for the Avalanche. We all know our team can do much better than that and 24 hours later they showed up to play.

On Sunday it was whole different story against the Irma Aces. The team obviously not wanting a repeat of the day before performance came out of the gate flying taking a 3 to 0 lead in the first period.  The Aces would get a few back in the second period the score 4 to 2 after forty minutes. The Avalanche keeping the foot on the gas and the lead. The final score in this one was 5 to 4 for the Avalanche. ‘ Bo Diddley ‘ Fontaine scoring the first two goals. Madden ‘ Mad Dog’ Flamand with two goals as well. Dangerous sniper  ‘Top Gunner’ Crawford pulling the trigger on one hitting the target top corner and adding an assist. Gavin ‘ Green Light’ Kadutski, Ella ‘ Stellar ‘ Ballas, Kaleb ‘ Formula One’ Flamand , Evett’ Snoop Dog’ Smereka and goalie ‘ Goodyear’ Charlie Lesyk all getting credit with the assists. Almost too close for comfort in the end, but two points is two points and they needed the points.

Only the top four teams out of seven in Tier Two will get to play in the playoffs, The winner of the league going to provincials this year,  A new concept being tried by Hockey Alberta using the league winners rather than zone playoffs to determine who goes to the provincial finals.

The Bantam Avalanche had a rough penalty filled game on Saturday against Onion Lake Border Chiefs. At times the penalty box was bulging with more players then on the bench. The Avalanche  down by one goal at the beginning of this one, would pick up the slack going on to win  4 to 1. Two goals for Sam ‘ Spiderman’ Rogal. Ceajay ‘Quickdraw’ Quinney and Dean ‘the Machine’ Ockerman scoring the other two. Brady ‘the Bionic Man’ Hymanyk with two helpers, Quick Draw, and ‘Kid Kade’ Fontaine with the other assists .

On Sunday the Bantams hosted Kitscoty winning a close one 3 to 2. This game had its share of players in the sin bin too. ‘ Kid Kade’ Fontaine, ‘ Spiderman’ and his cousin Josef ‘ Big Red’ Theriault scoring for the Avalanche. ‘Spiderman ‘ and Landon ‘ the Magnificent  ‘ Malchowski with the assists.