MEMBERTOU, N.S. – The Arsenault’s Fish Mart Western Red Wings will play Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial champs today in semifinal action at the Don Johnson Memorial Cup.
Game time is 3:30 p.m. in Membertou, N.S. Newfoundland defeated the Wings 6-5 in a shootout on Thursday in round-robin play at the Atlantic junior B hockey championship.
“Our goal was to reach the semifinals, which we have, and enter Saturday’s game with no players injured while taking it one step at a time,” said Red Wings head coach Nathan DesRoches.
The Wings split games on Friday, defeating the Moncton Vito’s 5-2 and losing the finale 6-1 to the host Kameron Junior Miners.
Western finished the round-robin with a 2-1-1 record while host Miners were a perfect 4-0-0 to finish first.
Miners 6, Red Wings 1
In the most lopsided game of the tournament, the Red Wings dropped a 6-1 decision to the Miners.
The game was not even five minutes old and the Wings trailed 2-0. It stayed that way after one period before the Miners added another to lead 3-0 after two.
The Miners increased their lead to 6-0 in the third, one of the goals being a short-handed marker before Jason Gallant finally scored for the Wings with 11:58 left.
“Sometimes the lost battle benefits the war,” said DesRoches.
“They tried tried to run us out of the rink tonight,” he said, referencing the 94 minutes in penalties called including a penalty the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association wanted strictly enforced this season – slew footing, which was assessed to a Miners player and included a game misconduct in the third period.
Red Wings 5 Vito’s 2
The Wings got off to a quick start in their opener with the Island Junior Hockey League’s No. 1 defenceman playing a pivotal role.
Calvin McRae’s shot from the point in front of a crowded New Brunswick net allowed Jason Gallant to pick up the rebound and put the Island squad up 1-0. McRae, only seconds later, just missed from in close as New Brunswick goaltender Julien Landry made a great save. Following the stop, McRae stayed on the ice and moments later drilled a bullet from the point to give the Wings a 2-0 lead.
Head coach Nathan DesRosches described McRae as “being worth the price of admission because he is so interested and fun to watch.”
New Brunswick’s Remi Theriault scored 35 seconds into the middle frame. Going into the third period, Spencer Groom and Isaac Knox scored for the Wings to push the lead to 4-1.
New Brunswick, which faced elimination from the tournament if they failed to get at least one point, pulled their goalie with 3:50 to play and managed to score once before Silas Handrahan put scored an empty-net goal to ice the game.
Bronson Banks turned away 28 shots.
“Brons won the hockey game for us,” DesRoches said.
