Ice Wolves lose, go to game seven

Around the midway mark of the third period, however, everything seemed all set for a repeat of last year when the Ice Wolves defeated Yorkton, in Yorkton, to win the title.

On Sunday night, at the Farrell Agencies Arena, La Ronge had built themselves a 3-1 lead by the midway mark of the third period.

The opening period went by scoreless, and the teams traded goals in the second period.

In the third, La Ronge went ahead by two, 3-1. Then two major penalty calls set the Terriers up with nine minutes of powerplay time, which they used to their advantage.

They recorded the equalizer with just over five minutes remaining in regulation time, evening the score at 3-3.

Up until that point, the visiting team from La Ronge controlled just about every aspect of the hockey game.

Following the game-winning goal, La Ronge head coach, Bob Beatty, wasn't happy.

“We're very disappointed, he told the media outside the dressing room at Farrell Agencies Arena in Yorkton.

“We were in control of the game.”

He said it was an example of what can transpire when penalties become as big a factor, as they did in Sunday evening's game.

“We lost control,” Beatty added, noting that they were getting called 200 feet away from their own net.

He also added that he didn't think penalties were the deciding factor, but wasn't in agreement on the major penalty to Justin Ducharme that allowed Yorkton to even the score at 3-3 with time running out in the third period.

La Ronge forward Logan Herauf did his part to try to nail down a title for his team. He gave the Ice Wolves a 2-1 lead, then helped set up teammate Travis Eggum, who put the Ice Wolves up 3-1.

Then came the penalties.

That all came after Yorkton's Clarke Breitkreuz worked magic with the puck, taking it from his own net and put it into the La Ronge net without anyone touching him. The goal went unassisted at 7:48 of the second period.

Skyler Hladun evened the score for La Ronge several minutes later from Eggum and Marc Andre Carre at 3:10 of the third period, and Eggum rounded out the Ice Wolves scoring when he beat Yorkton netminder Devin Peters with his 10th goal of the playoffs from Carre and Herauf with just over 10 minutes to play.

Herauf told the press following the game that the only hope for the Ice Wolves to repeat as SJHL champions now is to have a short memory.

“We're optimistic going back home. It's going to be another tight game. It's going to be unreal (but) we have to have a short memory.”

Following Eggum's goal, La Ronge took two huge calls that helped the Terriers back into it. A major call for boarding went to La Ronge's Justin Doucharme, who was given five-and-a-game. La Ronge had a good bit of it killed off before Terrier Zak Majkowski scored his fourth at the midway mark of the third to cut the Ice Wolves lead to 3-2.

Only 30 seconds into overtime, Travis Eggum was called for high sticking and Yorkton's Craig Eisenhut wasted little time scoring the winner.

Beatty said it's going to be up to the entire team to show up Tuesday night and be prepared. Home ice advantage hasn't proven to be so evident in this series. Beatty said he hopes to find a way to use it to theirs.

“Well, I hope so,” he said. “We want to get the crowd into it (early).”

Game seven of the SJHL championship series is slated for 7:30 p.m., at the Mel Hegland Agriplex in La Ronge.

The winner moves on to play against the Portage Terriers of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League. Portage won the right to play in the ANAVET Cup after knocking off the Selkirk Steelers in their best-of-seven series that needed five games to complete.

news@panow.com

by Jeff Schneberk

Ice Wolves lose, go to game seven

For paNOW

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