Warriors seek redemption

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/03/2022 (1458 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Westwood Warriors are young, eager and full of ambition. They believe winning the first AAAA varsity boys provincial hockey title in school history is well within their grasp.

The No. 2 ranked Warriors, still stinging from last week’s loss to the St. Paul’s Crusaders in the third and deciding game of the city final, will have a chance to redeem themselves when the provincial championship opens Friday morning at the Selkirk Recreational Complex.

“We started with a good group of guys and we all want to win and we all believed we could, so going to the (city) finals wasn’t really a surprise for us,” said star defenceman Jarrett Ross Wednesday afternoon. “I think we have a really good chance to get into (Monday’s final) and hopefully we’ll be able to win.”

Westwood has a 9 a.m. match-up with the No. 6 Portage Trojans followed by a 5 p.m. encounter with the Vincent Massey (Winnipeg) Trojans. The top two teams each of two pools advances to Saturday’s semifinals with the winners moving into Monday’s 6:30 p.m. final.

Specials teams are likely to be crucial to Westwood’s chances of reaching the big game. St. Paul’s won four consecutive Manitoba titles before the 2019 and 2020 provincials were both wiped out due to the pandemic.

“Our power play and penalty kill, which was good all year, wasn’t good enough come finals,” said Warriors head coach Steve Christie, whose club won once and added a shootout loss in six head-to-head meetings with St. Paul’s. “We rely a lot on our power play for goals and when we needed it most, it seemed to abandon us there. Especially in Game 3 (of the city final).”

Westwood was 0-for-4 on the power play in that decisive third game against St. Paul’s and the Warriors will be expecting sharper finishing from star forward Tristen Arnason and defenders Ross and Matt Smith.

“He was one of our leaders all year — he controls the half wall and he’s kind of a playmaker so he’ll do a lot of that and draw people to him and then he finds guys that are open,” said Christie of Arnason.

Ross, the team’s playoff MVP, should also figure prominently.

“I like to be physical,” said Ross. “I think I’ve calmed down the amount that I’ve hit recently but I like to be physical and I like to create offence as well.”

There will be little room for error in the round robin. Two wins Friday will likely guarantee the Warriors avoid a semifinal clash with the Crusaders.

“We won’t have any second chances like you do in a (playoff) series, so we have to be ready to go,” said Christie, admitting it was difficult to plot strategy for the Zone 4 champs from Portage la Prairie.

“I have no video but I’ve spoken to a couple coaches that I know from their league and they’ve kind of highlighted some some of the better players and what they do to be successful. So we’ve got a plan for that… If we play our game, we should come out on top.”

Christie has a short bench with nine forwards and five defencemen and he plans to use both of his goaltenders on Friday — Nigel Taylor and Evan Kozak — and ride the hot hand into the playoff round.

“It’s rare that kids this age to play two games in a day,” said Christie. “And everybody has to do that on the Friday. So we’ll be keeping shifts short, not chasing the game and trying to play with the lead. I think is going to be important.

”Also, as one of the higher seeds, we have the most time between games and hopefully we can use that to an advantage.”

Meanwhile, the fourth-seeded Lord Selkirk Royals grabbed a berth in the provincials as tournament hosts but they’re not planning to be hospitable.

The Royals, led by ace forward Nathan Burzynski, face the Vincent Massey (Brandon) Vikings at 3 p.m. on Friday before tangling with St. Paul’s at 7 p.m.

Serkirk beat St. Paul’s once in three meetings, split a pair of games with Vincent Massey (Winnipeg) and played Westwood tough, losing all three times, including once in overtime.

“We definitely feel we are a bit of an underdog but we also know the talent that we have on our team,” said head coach Michael Buffie. “The top-ranked teams in this tournament come from our league and we’ve been competitive. We beat St. Paul’s once, we beat Vincent Massey once this year and we’ve played competitive games with Westwood. So we know we can play with those guys and we’re lookin forward to it.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14