Huskies lose in Whitecourt

Sorry it took so long for me to post about the Huskies Wolverines game from Saturday. I was detoxing from the 22 hours I spent on a bus over the weekend.

The Huskies played well in Whitecourt and just that fact is a good sign for FSJ. They haven't showed a whole lot in either of the previous games that they played in the court. The Wolverines are a fabulous team and they bury chances so you have to play a near perfect game to defeat them. The Huskies made one and a half mistakes in the first period, allowed the Wolverines at best 3 scoring chances and they were down 2 to nothing at the end of the period. Rod Lavoie is a sniper and he put a snap shot past Zach Blain that was hard and perfectly placed. The Huskies number 1 has been playing well lately and he made key stops in the second period that kept his team in the game. Dylan Apsassin scored a beauty of a little deflection through the legs of Ryan Demharter in the Wolverines goal. At that point though the Huskies were already down 3 zip but they had their chances. After Dylan scored to make it 3 - 1 the Huskies had a couple of powerplays that would have got them right back in the game. They couldn't cash though a 3rd period goal by Jeff Chalifoux sealed the 4 - 1 Wolverines victory. The Huskies showed that they can play with Whitecourt though and should take confidence from this game. They are better at home so we will see how they do on the 14th and 15th at the NPA when they host the Wolverines.

They get great fan support in Whitecourt and the crowd was boisterous if not a little bias. The referee was OK overall I thought but a couple of phantom calls and the fact that Chalifoux shot the puck at Jon Spence after the second period ended and it went uncalled kept him from having a very good game. Chalifoux is a great player but unfortuanately does some strange and frankly uncalled for things on the ice at times. Jon Spence should not have speared a Wolverines player during the All Star game, that is uncalled for as well, but there is no excuse for shooting a puck at a player, even if you don't like him because someone could get seriously injured. I met a couple of the Whitecourt guys after the game they seem like solid guys and I look forward to a potential play off match-up between the Huskies and Wolverines despite the amount of bus travel that that would entail. Ran into Wolverines coach Joey Bouchard after the game and he had nothing but good things to say about the Huskies. He said they know that the Huskies are a good team and they are loving that their preparation for the playoffs will be those final two games at the NPA in a couple weeks. I can't stress enough how good those games will be. A big thanks goes out to the Slave Lake Wolves for going into Dawson Creek and beating the Jr Canucks. Down 2 nothing and with just 10 players making the trip you would have forgiven the Wolves had they packed it in early but they fought back for a 3 to 2 victory which was very good for the Huskies and for Peace River. There are a lot of key game left for all those teams in the battle for 2nd. The fact that DC and PR pay each other twice more helps the Huskies. As long as those games don't go to OT only one of the teams will get points. If they split them and the Huskies can win one of their games against Grand Prairie or the one against Peace that they have left and the pups should get second place. It is going to be an interesting few weeks. Thanks to Dave Dawson who does the Wolverines play by play for showing us the night life in Whitecourt and for pumping up this blog when I went on his radio station during the second intermission. Next up for the Huskies is on the road in GP but we won't be covering that game unfortunately. We will be with the Flyers as they wrap up their regular season in Spirit River.