Tales from the Timebox: And they’re off…

Tales from the Timebox: October 20th, 2020

This past March the hockey season ended abruptly sending our teams home. Some of them like our bantam team missing out on the chance, after winning the league, to play and possibly win a provincial title.

That’s all history now, what could have been and what-ifs, we will likely replay forever until the end of time. And up until a few weeks ago the what-ifs were still here with us.

The big question was “What if we don’t even have a hockey season?”

No one of course wanted to hear that. But no one really knew at the time, if or when minor hockey would return.

Thankfully we have been saved and it’s back with us. Because honestly what the heck would I do all winter if it wasn’t for hockey? Sit inside the house and pout I suppose. Or I could try my hand at woodworking and see if I have any fingers left come spring.

The ice has been in at the A.G. Ross Arena for just over a week. Most of our teams have had just one or possibly two practises last week.

The league games, for now, will be only against their three or four cohorts for the first few months. If I understand it correctly, they will play one weekend and then not play again for 10 days or so to make sure everyone is still healthy. Or until COVID-19 decides to take a hike. This is likely the way it will be until something changes.

Our atom Avalanche team or should I say U11 to be politically correct, hit the ice running this past weekend travelling up to Bonnyville on Saturday night to play a pre-season game. The same Pontiacs team returned on late Sunday afternoon to play in Elk Point.

The Avalanche U11 team won both games by double digits quite easily. I’m not sure how the tiering system is going to work this year in the North East League. In a normal year, teams would move up or down or stay in the same tier after about the first 10 games or so depending on their record.

Being cooped up for six months, ‘Wild Wyatt’ Fontaine had a lot of energy to burn off. He scored seven goals on Saturday and adding three helpers. On Sunday, he scored quite a few more than seven.

Jaxon ‘Smitty’ Smith came out of the gate running too, scoring four goals and an assist on Saturday. Sunday’s game he added another goal and was quite strong on the defensive side of the game, stopping most of their attackers in their tracks.

William ‘Billy Bob’ Ballas buried two goals in less than a minute in the second period on Saturday. Sunday he scored a hat trick and did some fantastic backchecking. Remington ‘Steel’ Reynolds hitting the target with one goal on Saturday.

The trigger man racked up five goals and an assist at home on Sunday.

Avree ‘the Aggressor’ Lesyk found the twine in putting one up on the board on Saturday’s game. Sunday at home she was quite aggressive on the forecheck.

Jaxon ‘Magic’ Marcoux scoring one on Saturday on the road and hitting the post with at least two at home on Sunday. Magic added an assist or two.

Ryder ‘Rhino’ Malo with two goals in Sunday’s game and Jesse James Penner with a goal and two assists on Sunday as well. Set up man Jackson ‘J.R.’ Rawlake had three assists in the Sunday game.

‘Major Tom’ Melnyk with an assist on Sunday and lots of other players with assists as well but they don’t always get credit for them on the game sheet.

Theo ‘Longhorn’ Quinney between the pipes wasn’t very busy but he came up big when called upon.

Defense-woman Kestyn Quinney did a super job of patrolling the blue line, forward Hayden Badger laid some heavy forechecking creating turnovers, and rookie Tristan Brousseau, coming over from a year of pond hockey, is looking great and not out of place at all in his first year of league play.

K.A. Campbell quote of the week. “Keep your stick on the ice and skate like hell.” – the late Stan Mikita.