M.L. Stampeders ready for second half of season

The Meadow Lake Stampeders midget ‘AA’ hockey team had a rocky first half of the season. Despite the rough start, they are looking ahead to the second half and will take things game-by-game and weekend-by-weekend.

Finishing the first half of the season with a 5-10-1-1 record, the Stamps are in 13th place out of 15 teams in the Centre Four Hockey League. 

Looking back on the first 17 games, team manager Trevor Finlay said the coaching staff and players hoped to have a couple more wins after the first half of the season.

“But unfortunately, a couple games we didn’t play to our potential so we took losses,” he said.

Finlay added the turnover from last season to this year has also played a role in the team’s play thus far.

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Leaving the roster was Dylan Esau, who was selected in the WHL bantam draft by the Kelowna Rockets and in the SJHL draft by the Battleford’s North Stars. This season Esau is playing midget ‘AAA’ in the Battlefords.

Other roster losses include Shane Hounsell and Justin Hebert, who are playing for the Saskatoon Blazers ‘AAA’ club. Jay Cantre, another departure, is playing for the ‘AAA’ Beardy’s Blackhawks.

“We lost some goal scoring punch with those guys and some experience for sure,” Finlay said.

In the 2015-16 season, Hounsell led the team in scoring with 44 points. Adding in Esau’s, Cantre’s, and Hebert’s points, the four players combined for 120 points for the Stampeders.

This year, leading the team in scoring is Brody Swanson, who has 20 points so far in 15 games played.

Watching between training camp and now, Finlay added the play of Swanson has definitely surprised the coaching staff.

“Geordie Janvier has also been a bit of a surprise from training camp to now, his game has greatly improved and in my opinion the most improved player on the team,” Finlay said.

He added in his first year playing ‘AA’ Spencer Morninchild has been an important addition as he’s fourth in team scoring with 10 points.

Finlay added there hasn’t been any one who isn’t playing to their expectations. He said everyone is working hard and playing to the best of their abilities.

The second half of the season resumes this weekend for the Stampeders. On Friday, Jan. 6 the Stamps welcome the Midwest Redwings to the Meadow Lake and District Arena.

Saturday, Jan. 7 has the Saskatoon River Kings in town while Sunday, Jan. 8 will see the green and white take on the Battlefords Barons.

Midwest and Battlefords both have similar records to Meadow Lake, sitting at 6-10-0 and 6-7-0-4 respectively. The River Kings on the other hand are one of the top teams in the league with a 12-4-0 record.

“I think our biggest challenge will be Saturday’s game against the River Kings, they’re a good team and we only lost by a couple goals when we played them in Saskatoon, so hopefully we can pick up our game this weekend and go for three wins,” Finlay said.

For the rest of the season, Finlay added coaches and players are taking things game by game, starting with the team’s final three home games of the season this weekend.

“We’re certainly going to look to position ourselves better with three good games this weekend,” he said. “We certainly would like to get in that ninth or tenth position heading into playoffs.”

The regular season ends in mid-February with the top 12 teams advancing to playoffs.

Last year the Stampeders had a Cinderella run to the semi-finals defeating the Battlefords and the league’s top team in North East before falling in three games to the eventual champs, the Humboldt Broncos.

Colton Swiderski is a news and sports reporter for meadowlakeNOW, paNOW and battlefordsNOW.com. He can be reached at cswiderski@jpbg.ca or tweet him @coltonswiderski.