Prairie Thunder to play in today’s Allan Cup semis

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/04/2016 (2936 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Southeast Prairie Thunder, defending Allan Cup champions and host team of this year’s Allan Cup in Steinbach, will play in the semi-finals Friday after defeating the Ile des Chenes North Stars 3-1 in the quarter-finals late Thursday night, or should we say early Friday morning.

Earlier, the Shellbrook Elks also won their quarter-final game, defeating Stoney Creek Generals 7-4.

The Thunder will take on the Grand Falls-Windsor Cataracts at 8:00 p.m. tonight while the Elks will go up against the Bentley Generals at 4:00 p.m., with the winner advancing to Saturday’s championship game at 3:00 p.m.

Ile des Chenes, as it were, were double losers yesterday, as they not only lost on the ice, but also lost a decision in the boardroom following that fiasco by Hockey Manitoba, Hockey Canada and Hockey Whoever that led to the complete disruption of proceedings at Thursday’s Allan Cup tournament.

At any rate, when the dust had cleared, it was close to 1:00 a.m. (Friday morning that is) when the final buzzer went and hundreds of bleary eyed fans filed out of Centennial Arena.

Yeterday’s 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. games and teams were re-shuffled following the discovery that Ile des Chenes had an extra import in their two round robin games, and their victory over Stoney Creek was subsequently wiped out. So the times of the quarter-finals were changed to 8:00 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.

When the puck dropped at 10:40 p.m. in the second quarter-final, what resulted was an entertaining hockey game, a nice respite, if you will, from the events of the day.

The Praire Thunder jumped to a a 2-0 lead in the first on goals by Tyler Dittmer and Blair Macauley. But with just over a minute remaining in the first Ile des Chenes responded with a huge goal as Lee Goren put one past Steve Christie to make it 2-1 at the break.

The teams went at it for the next 40 minutes, with the Thunder still clinging to that 2-1 lead, until Mark Agnew scored an empty netter in the final seconds of the game.

And so that brought an end to a wild and crazy day at T.G. Smith Centre.

Puck drop on today’s semi-finals, if all goes to plan, will be at 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.