Warriors rebound after opening loss

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This article was published 15/10/2020 (1716 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The St. Malo Warriors have opened the Capital Regional Junior Hockey League season with a win and a loss in the first week of this COVID-restricted campaign.

Although the Warriors have been on the ice skating and practicing for the past month, they were not able to play any exhibition games.

So their first taste of actual game action came last Saturday in Selkirk against their arch-rival Selkirk Fishermen. As per usual it was a one-goal game as the Fishermen eked out a 3-2 triumph. St. Malo bounced back to double the North Winnipeg Satelites 4-2 Tuesday night in Winnipeg.

St. Malo and Selkirk were the class of the CRJHL last season. The Warriors finished with a 22-6-3-1 regular season record last year, just behind the front-running Fishermen at 23-5-2-2. Both clubs had just won their opening round playoff series with ease and were headed on a collision course in the post-season when the season was called off.

So it was no surprise that these two league titans were again only separated by a goal when they kicked off a new season last weekend. One year ago it was the same scenario as the Fishermen edged the Warriors 4-3 in a game played Oct. 4, 2019 at Selkirk.

In this year’s season opener, all the scoring came in the first two periods as the Fishermen took a 3-2 lead after 40 minutes but the Warriors were not able to get the equalizer in the final 20.

Patrice Robidoux and Evan Wuerch were the St. Malo goal scorers. Ryland Medwick made 36 saves in a losing cause in net for the Warriors.

Tuesday in Winnipeg, the Warriors prevailed 4-2 over the Satelites thanks to the work of sniper Alex Murray. Murray scored a natural hat trick, including two in the first and then made it 3-0 in the second enroute to the victory.

Mason French rounded out the scoring for the Warriors in the third while Riley Young and Gavin Pott each picked up a pair of assists for the winners.

St. Malo outshot the Satelites 41-27 with Medwick the winner in net.

The Warriors are playing their first four games on the road until the St. Malo Arena opens at the end of the month. They are now idle until Oct. 24 when they will travel to Lundar to take on the Falcons.