Alaska’s Juneau Capitals rep hockey team did a little tour of Yukon last week. Whitehorse’s Atom Mustangs provided a bump in the road.
The Capitals played five games against Yukon teams and came away with three wins, a loss and a tie.
Juneau’s atom team - or “squirts” as the age group is called in the U.S. - defeated Haines Junction’s house team 5-3 and 8-0 on Thursday and Friday. They then lost 9-1 to the Mustangs Friday evening. The Capitals finished their trip with a 4-1 win over the Whitehorse Novice Huskies on Saturday and a 5-5 tie against a Whitehorse atom house league team.
Juneau was originally supposed to play three games against the Atom Mustangs but plans changed after Friday’s blowout.
“It was a challenging game for sure ...
but it was still a good eye-opener for us to see what’s out there,” said Capitals head coach Aaron Frenzel. “(The Huskies are) more at the level we play at. We are a Tier 4 organization, so this is more our level of play.”
“We wish they would have played us again ... They might have been tired that Friday night because they played a game in Haines (Junction) that morning as well,” said Mustangs head coach Trevor Matthews. “On Saturday they had time to rest and try again, but they didn’t want to. They wanted to play somebody a little more their calibre.”
The Mustangs’ win marked the first for the team this season against an Outside team. Whitehorse’s Austin Larkin scored a hat trick, Erik Breithaupt skated away with two goals and Ty Beacon registered a goal and an assist. Mustangs Nolan Matthews, Ethan Candow and Joshua Schenk also contributed goals.
Preventing the shutout for Juneau in Saturday’s 4-1 loss was Huskies’ Kaelen Halowaty.
Juneau’s tie on Sunday came against Scotiabank, which was supplemented with players from Booster Juice and Coldwell Banker. Three times in the game Scotiabank fought back from deficits to tie it.
“Great and exciting back and forth game marked by excellent goaltending on the Juneau end,” said Scotiabank coach Mike Cozens. “Parents in the stands were really into the game and cheering.”
Sunday’s game was pushed to a tie with Max Zimmerman scoring the tying 5-5 goal with 1:39 left in regulation, assisted by Luke Cozens. Scotiabanks’ other goals came from Orlina Manard with an assist from Rogan Parry; two from Nevaeh Webb with an assist from Ethan Candow; and Luke Cozens put in the fourth.
“I know one of the assistant coaches with the Mustangs, so I called him up and said, ‘I want to bring a team up,’” said Frenzel. “Our total squirt organization is 32 players in Juneau, so these are more of our second-year squirts.”
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com