It’s been a weird one…

By Dale Woodard on May 6, 2021.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDsports@lethbridgeherald.com

It’s been an odd season, to say the least.

Peculiar, quirky, bizarre, whack-a-doodle É just plain goofy.

So as the Lethbridge Hurricanes wrapped up their 24-game Western Hockey League regular season – shortened due to a certain pandemic – with a 3-2 overtime loss to the Edmonton Oil Kings Tuesday night in Edmonton, it stands to reason the feelings about the completion of said Bizarro World season would be similar.

On that note, we’ll kick it over to Canes head coach Brent Kisio to keep the synonyms coming.

“It’s just different,” he said of the end of the COVID season that was delayed until the end of February, keeping the regular season to 24 games and eliminating all playoffs, ending the season with a thud on Tuesday. “You don’t have that disappointment the next day that you usually feel, the two weeks of mourning and feeling sorry for yourself because of what happened. In the playoffs, you go, go, go and you have all this life and you have a chance to win and then when you don’t, it’s a terrible feeling. It ends so suddenly.

“But this year our end was our end and we knew it was coming. It wasn’t our choice. So we just did what we did.”

Instead, Wednesday morning was spent getting pumped up for next season with, ideally, a return to a bit of normalcy.

“We’re not having that two week mourning process, it’s exciting for next year already and trying to think about different combos that are available to us through lines and guys getting a year older. It’s just exciting today and we’re skipping that disappointing phase.”

On Tuesday, the Hurricanes took the WHL Central Division champion Oil Kings to overtime before Edmonton’s Josh Williams scored his second of the game 21 seconds into the extra session as Lethbridge finishes the season at 9-12-3-0.

Chase Wheatcroft scored in the first period for the Hurricanes and Ty Nash briefly gave the visitors a 2-1 lead in the second.

Nash was even awarded his first WHL penalty shot in the third period, but was unable to convert on the chance.

“I thought we played a good game,” said Kisio. “We played hard, especially in the first period. The guys came out hard and were skating, doing a lot of good things and could have been up by a couple of goals.

“But then Edmonton pushed back and the rest of the game was just a good hockey game. They’re a good hockey club and I was proud of how we played and how far we’ve come from the start of the year and how we looked against those guys to where we finished.”

Even if it was essentially a mean-nothing game, standings-wise, Kisio said it wasn’t hard for his charges to get up for the game.

“The guys were really excited and for our 20-year-olds, it was their last game. With (Dino) Kambeitz, (Mitch) Prowse and (Liam) Kindree you always want to give them a good moment to finish off. For me, I was coaching for those guys and I wanted to give them a lot of opportunity to play the right way and really finish their careers on their own terms and our guys were the same way in the room. They wanted to go out there and play hard and make those guys proud and show how much we care about those guys and what they’ve done for us. We went out there and we played hard. We ended up on the wrong side, but it was a good hockey game.”

Tuesday night’s result was much closer than when the Canes faced the Oil Kings on opening weekend at the end of February, dropping 7-1 and 7-2 decisions.

“We came a long way,” said Kisio. “At the start we were shockingly far behind some teams and we had a lot of work to do. Every guy was different. I think we under-estimated this COVID and how guys handled time away from the rink. It really affected some guys and it affected them on and off the ice. It was the whole package we had to deal with. So I think as we worked through the season we got better and better and guys got accustomed back to their routines and their workouts. It was a bit of a longer adjustment, but I thought we got there by the end and did a really good job in our last few weeks of games playing hard.”

The Hurricanes head coach gave credit to the team’s management for simply getting the team on the ice for the 24-game season in which games were played only on weekends – or the odd Thursday – and strictly against Central Division opponents.

“There was a lot of work,” said Kisio. “From our general manager (Peter Anholt) right from the start getting this put together. He was one of the mainstays to try to get us going and playing hockey and doing it for the kids. Peter was a big reason we played this year.

“As for our team, the meals every day and from our coaches and assistant coaches having to work on that and getting everything set up, it’s not easy feeding 26 guys all the time.”

What’s better, among all the testing over the past two months, the Hurricanes didn’t turn in a single positive COVID test.

“I think it shows we were really careful,” said Kisio. “Our guys paid close attention to the rules and we did what we had to do to play hockey this year.”

See Friday’s Herald as Hurricanes goaltender and Lethbridge product Carl Tetachuk and Canes rookie forward Cole Miller assess the past season.

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