Ice looking to even score against Rebels

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This article was published 02/04/2024 (899 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The 2023-24 season brought fresh hope for the Winnipeg Ice.

The two-time Manitoba Female U18 Hockey League champions are hosting this weekend’s Esso Cup West Regional against the Saskatchewan-champion Regina Rebels with some pay back on their minds.

A year ago, Winnipeg was swept under bizarre circumstances by the hometown Rebels in the best-of-three regional.

In Game 1, the Ice were up 3-1 with four minutes remaining only to watch that lead slip away en route to a 4-3 loss in double overtime. In Game 2, the Winnipeggers were cruising with a 4-2 edge late in the third period before the Rebels rallied to win 5-4 in overtime.

“Obviously, it was a tough ending last year,” said captain Stephanie Jacob as the Ice prepped for Friday’s Game 1 against the Rebels. “We were really close to winning both games, but I think we’ve worked so hard throughout the whole season that we know what we’ve built on will bring us to how we need to play. We’ll have to play our hardest to win.”

The experience made a lasting impression on the players and coaching staff.

“We’ve talked about it so many times. Parents have brought it up so many times,” said head coach Eugene Kaminsky. “There’s been games we’ve had this year where we were up 3-1 or up 4-2 and it gets tight and everybody gets nervous. But the situations we had last year — there’s extenuating circumstances to some of those leads.”

Kaminsky, when asked what those circumstances were, said: “Officiating, if I’ve gotta be blunt about this. Literally, we had three penalties in a row within two minutes in Game 1 and then same thing happened in Game 2.”

Ice blue-liner Breanne Comte believes her team is better for last year’s disappointment.

“We were up by two goals in both games and then kind of just fell apart,” said Comte. “I think this year we really want to concentrate on — if we’re up by a couple goals — just to really hammer down our defensive game and make sure that any shots they have are from the outside and that they’re low-quality shots.”

The winner of the West Regional advances to the Esso Cup U18 national tournament in Vernon, B.C., April 21-27.

“We have a pretty new team this year — we lost players, we gained a lot — and I don’t think I would call it a haunted feeling,” said first-line centre Izzy Mann. “I think everyone’s kind of aware of the consequences of when things just break apart in the last few minutes. I think this year’s team and the Regina Rebels team we’re playing against — we compare quite equally to them. So, I think at that point, it just comes down to the mental game.”

The Rebels, meanwhile, boast one of the finest big-game performers in centre Stryker Zablocki, a Northeastern University commit who played a regular shift with Canada’s U18 national team earlier this year. Zablocki scored the tying and winning goals against the Ice in Game 1 last spring and helped to engineer the Game 2 comeback with a third-period marker.

The Ice are keenly aware of the danger she poses.

“Steph (Jacob) and I have played against a lot of skilled players over there, so we know that we have to shut down those skilled players right away and make sure they don’t have any time and space,” said Comte, 17.

Winnipeg also has star power. Jacob, the league’s 17-year-old leading scorer and MVP, has grown her game on the way to making an NCAA commitment to the University of Maine.

“That first year, you could just tell right away,” said Kaminsky of Jacob’s 15-year-old season. “She was just a gamer. She was a competitor. She was still very raw in her understanding the game but she had a lot of skill. And you could see that last year where it really started to develop. She started to really expose a lot of teams and goalies with her ability to skate and shoot. And this year she’s taken it to another level.”

Comte, who will play in Canada West with the Mount Royal Cougars in Calgary this fall, has made a rapid rise since the 2022-23 season.

“She had some growing pains in the first year for sure and then last year, holy smokes, what a breakout year,” said Kaminsky. “She was really dominant. In my opinion, probably was the best defenceman in our league and didn’t get that recognition.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca