The Bantam Mustangs weren’t able to find one last tournament to enter before the B.C. championships, so they did the next best thing.
The Yukon rep team instead hit the road for exhibition games in Edmonton, Feb. 12-14.
“We wanted to get one more tournament in, but we just couldn’t find anything,” said Mustangs head coach Kirk Gale. “This worked out well for us. We got five games in over a weekend when we can usually only get four.”
The Mustangs faced three teams in five games and came away with two wins.
They won their first two games before fatigue and injury took its toll.
The team travelled with just eight forwards, four defence and played the last three games in a span of only 18 hours.
“That’s a lot of hockey,” said Gale. “And then one of our forwards - Bryce Anderson - ended up pulling a muscle in the second shift of the first game and he was done for the trip. So that just left us with seven forwards.
“He’s one of our top players, for sure.”
While Anderson’s road trip was cut short, he did manage to make a mark. The forward notched the first goal of the trip in a 3-2 win over the Seera Icemen. He was assisted by Isaac Williamson and Josh Austin. Forward Josh Zacarelli added the next, from Wyatt Peterson and Oscar Sawicki, and Austin got the game winner from Williamson and Saul Gale.
The Mustangs then downed the NWZ Outlaws 5-4. Forward Eric Potvin scored twice and had an assist and Williamson had two goals - including the game winner - and two assists. Austin got the first goal and assisted the game winner with defenceman Liam Hudson.
Peterson, Saul and Aimery Barrault also had assists in the game.
The Mustangs fell 4-2 to the Outlaws the next game. Williamson and Peterson both scored.
Peterson and Austin also scored the goals in a 6-3 loss to the KC Voyageurs.
The Mustangs ended the trip with a 6-2 loss to the Seera Icemen. Williamson and defenceman Kyle Schwantz put Yukon on the board.
“I think we could have won all five games, it just came down to fatigue,” said Kirk. “Bryce is a goal scorer too, so he could have started putting in some goals. We needed someone like that.”
The Bantam Mustangs will compete in Tier 3 of the B.C. Hockey Championships in Smithers this March 13-17.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com