UPCOMING HOME GAMES
Tuesday, September 30 – Drumheller Dragons at 7 PM
Friday, October 3 – Sherwood Park Crusaders at 7 PM
For the fourth consecutive year, the Canmore Eagles have returned home from the Alberta Junior Hockey League’s Showcase weekend without a single point.
After dropping a listless 2-0 decision to the Lloydminster Bobcats on Friday afternoon, the Eagles suffered a 4-1 loss to the Bonnyville Pontiacs on Saturday afternoon at the Tri Leisure Centre in Spruce Grove, Alberta.
Canmore has now gone 0-8 at the Showcase event during the last four seasons.
“We didn’t play very well in Game One against Lloydminster, but we played a much better game against Bonnyville but the hockey gods just weren’t on our side,” said Eagle’s Head Coach and General Manager Andrew Milne, whose club surrendered five power play goals over the two games. “We took some undisciplined penalties this weekend and we certainly paid for it on the scoresheet.
“For whatever reason, we just seem to be a little uptight at this event. With all the scouts in the stands, I think our players just tried to do too much individually. We passed, when we should have shot, we shot when we should have passed, and when we did have some scoring opportunities, we somehow found a way to either miss the net or fan on the shot. We had our chances, but the puck just didn’t want to go in for us. Snakebit would be an accurate word to describe our weekend.”
With the two losses, the Eagle’s early season record now stands at 3-4 and they will meet the red-hot Drumheller Dragons (6-1-1) at the Canmore Recreation Centre on Tuesday night (Sept. 30). Game time is 7 PM.
“It’s a long season, it’s only September and we’ll bounce back from a rather tough weekend,“ said Milne. “We know we have a better team than we showed this weekend. We have some things to work on but we’ll be OK. We’ll be ready to go on Tuesday night.”
NOTEBOOK: Eagle forward Simon Philp took a puck to the face during Friday’s game against Lloydminister and did not dress for Saturday’s game. His status is day-to-day. . .Kurt Hildebrand had the only Eagle’s goal over the weekend against Bonnyville and was named the Eagle’s “Star of the Game”. . . Former Eagle goaltender Sam Brittain played the 3rd period for the Florida Panthers in yesterday’s NHL exhibition game against the Nashville Predators. Brittain stopped all 10 shots he faced but the Panthers lost 2-1 in a shoot-out.