PHOTO: Canmore’s Logan Ferguson scores his third goal of the night, and 22nd of the season, to lead the Eagles to an 8-5 victory over the Olds Grizzlys on Tuesday night. Photo courtesy of Pam Doyle.
UPCOMING HOME GAME: Friday, March 4 – Drumheller Dragons at Canmore – 7 PM
For the first time since the 2006-2007 season, the Canmore Eagles have secured home-ice advantage for an Alberta Junior Hockey League playoff series.
Thanks to an 8-5 victory over the Olds Grizzlys on Tuesday night, the Eagles will finish the season in fourth-place in the AJHL Southern Division standings and will meet the fifth-place Drumheller Dragons in the first round, best-of-five series.
With the victory on Tuesday night, the Eagles record improves to 26-27-6, good enough for 58 points. The Dragons, who will pay a playoff preview visit to Canmore on Friday night to wrap up the Eagle’s regular season schedule, have a record of 24-29-5 for 53 points and can no longer catch the Eagles for fourth-place.
“I am very proud of the guys,” said Eagles Head Coach and General Manager Andrew Milne, who kept 12 rookie players on his roster this season. “At the beginning of the year, we set out to have home ice advantage in the playoffs and last night we accomplished that. We started strong, got a good lead and then we were able to rest some guys as the game went on. It's always great when you control your own destiny. We know we have lots of work ahead of us and the good news is we have over a week to prepare for the playoffs and Drummeller. That's going to be our focus here for the next nine days.”
In Tuesday’s victory over Olds, Logan Ferguson had three goals (20, 21, 22nd), Coy Prevost had a pair (19 & 20th), and Brett Radford (23rd), Jonas Gordon (3rd) and Kurt Hildebrand (4th) had singles. Goaltender Ryan Bontorin stopped 36 of 41 Grizzly shots to improve his record to 17-18-4.
NOTEBOOK: The Eagles will open the playoffs at home against the Drumheller Dragons with a pair of games scheduled for Thursday, March 10 and Friday, March 11. Both games will start at 7 PM. . . .The Eagles now have four 20-goal scorers on their roster including Matt Forchuk (27), Brett Radford (23), Logan Ferguson (22) and Coy Prevost (20). . . Congratulations to Rich Biccum, Kyle Jubb and James Deegan who have now qualified for the finals of the Can-Bow Motors Las Vegas final shoot-out scheduled for this Friday’s final regular season home game. One of them is going to win the Las Vegas trip for two . . . Congratulations also to Canmore resident Pauline Giglio who won the Calgary Flames Road trip raffle last night with raffle ticket #364.. . . The Eagles will be holding their 21st Annual Award’s Dinner on Saturday night at the Cornerstone Theatre. Tickets are just $50 and everyone is welcome to attend. The evening will feature a silent auction, humourous speeches and numerous award presentations.