Sunday, November 18, 2012 – When you’re hot, you’re hot and unfortunately for the Canmore Eagles, the Grand Prairie Storm are running red-hot right now as they defeated the visiting Eagles by a 3-0 margin in an Alberta Junior Hockey League played before 1,702 fans last night in Grande Prairie.
The Storm have now won 10 games in a row and came into last night’s game with a ton of added confidence after defeating the Brooks Bandits 4-1 on Friday night to put an end to the Bandits 20 game winning streak.
With their backs against the wall, the Eagles played a very solid road game outshooting the Storm 26-24 on the night and limiting the Storm to a slim 1-0 lead after two periods of play. A Storm goal early in the third period and an empty netter sealed the Eagle’s fate.
“We ran into a very hot team tonight, but our boys should be proud of the way they played,” said Eagle’s head coach and general manager Andrew Milne. “We were disciplined, hard working, and didn’t make any systematical errors. Both of their goals were the result of some good luck and when you’re on as good of a roll as they are, luck is on your side. I don’t think we had any puck luck tonight. We had a number of quality chances, but it just wasn’t our night.”
With the loss, the Eagle's record drops to 10-9-4, good enough for fifth-place in the bunched-up AJHL Southern Division standings. The Eagles trail the second-place Okotoks Oilers by six points (and enjoy two games in hand on Okotoks), but are just three points up on the last-place Drumheller Dragons.
Canmore will wrap up their “three games in 2 ½ days” northern division road trip with an afternoon game today in Whitecourt against the Wolverines. The Wolverines (12-6-7) will no doubt be in a bad mood as they were hammered 7-1 by the Brooks Bandits last night at home and will also be looking to avenge a 4-2 loss to the Eagles in an early season game played in Canmore on Sept. 14.
NOTEBOOK: The Eagles once again were without their leading goal scorer Steven Phee and centreman Jeremy Margeson last night. Twenty-year old netminder Ty Swabb, out since October 27, was once again on the bench backing-up starter Cameron Barnes. . . With the injuries to their lineup, the Eagles inserted 16-year Grande Prairie native and affiliate player Colton Sandboe into their lineup. . . It happens rarely, but there was not one single penalty called in last night's game. . .The Eagles next home action is Friday and Saturday nights (Nov. 23 & 24) when they will host their southern division rival Camrose Kodiaks for a pair of games.
