U18 AAA Hurricanes split weekend games

By Lethbridge Herald on December 5, 2022.

Herald photo by JUSTIN SEWARD Lethbridge Hurricanes’ Aidyn Law tries to make a move around Red Deer Optimist Chiefs forward Cooper Moore during U18 AAA Alberta Elite Hockey League action at Nicholas Sheran Arena on Sunday.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Hurricanes U18AAA team split their weekend home games with the Red Deer Optimist Chiefs.

The Chiefs won 4-2 on Sunday afternoon at Nicholas Sheran Arena,  and the difference in the game was an early third period goal by William Jamieson as time expired on the powerplay.

Owen Callow sealed the win for the Chiefs with an empty-net goal at 18:37.

The Canes could not seem to find the urgency to come back in hopes of a sweep of Red Deer.

“The more desperate team won today,” said Canes head coach Sean Gillam.

“Yes, we’re banged up a little bit. But you know what, I thought we came out a bit flat last night (Saturday) and we worked our way into the game. Today, we just didn’t have the urgency that we needed. They came in, they out competed us ,and they outworked us and they deserve to win the game and they did.”

The Chiefs and Hurricanes traded goals in the first period as Jaxen Smith opened the scoring for Red Deer, before Rhyle Weaselhead replied for Lethbridge at 17:27 of the first period.

The Canes took a 2-1 lead just 1:26 into the second period on a Jesse Klimosko goal, before Spencer Claerhout tied the game at 6:38 of the middle frame.

The loss comes on the heels of a 5-3 win on Saturday.

Deegan Kinniburgh led the way with two goals while Josh Evachesen, Aidyn Law and Maddox Mason scored a goal each in the win.

Lethbridge has 19 points through 18 games and a 9-8-0-1.

“There’s some games throughout our first 17, 18 games that we’ve definitely given away points and I hope it doesn’t come back to bite us,” said Gillam.

“But typically when you give away points and you don’t earn your points, it will come back to haunt you.”

Gillam expects the team have  around a .500 at Christmas time.

“We’re a game above it right now,” he said.

“We’ll just keep plugging away at that. You know what, this league is a second-half league anyways. You get into the second half and hopefully you learn from your first half and you get going on a bit of a run.”

Lethbridge will hit the road for two games this weekend in Airdrie and Calgary respectively.

The Val Matteotti Golden Hawks U15AAA team split their games in Calgary over the weekend.

The Hawks lost 10-1 to the Calgary (NWCAA) Flames on Saturday before edging the Calgary Royals 3-2 on Sunday.

Their record now sits at 4-9-1-2 on the season.

The U17AAA Headwater Hurricanes could breathe a sigh of relief on Friday as they picked up their first win of the season in a 2-1 victory over Fort Saskatchewan on the road.

The Hurricanes then followed that with a 3-3 tie on Saturday in Grande Prairie and improved their record to 1-8-1-2 on the season.