The Banff Hockey Academy Bears play four of the next five games on the road beginning tonight (Oct. 29) in High River following a 6-5 loss over the weekend in Heritage Junior Hockey League action.
The Bears faceoff against the Flyers at 7 p.m. and on Friday (Oct. 30) the squad is in Cochrane against the Generals before they make their only stop at home in five games on Sunday (Nov. 1) versus last year’s champs, the Coaldale Copperheads.
Rookie forward Blaise Arkle netted his first hat trick of the season for BHA this past Sunday (Oct. 25), but an offensive comeback by the Blackfalds Wranglers downed the Bears in a close affair.
Head coach Bill Doherty said it was a great game for his young Bears squad, but some maturity mistakes late in the third led to the revival of Blackfalds.
“We just seemed to make some bad decisions at our blue line … it really cost us, we turned the puck over two or three times in their comeback,” Doherty said.
Bears forward Ayrton Chapman from Canmore had a goal and assist and forward Mitchell Wainman of Banff gave the Bears the go ahead goal at the end of the second period to lead 4-3.
Arkle scored on the powerplay half-way through the final period to put the Bears up by two, but the determined Wranglers frantically clawed out of their deficit with three unanswered goals.
Wranglers rookie forward Mark Simpson capped off the comeback with the game-winning goal in the final two minutes. It was the forward’s second goal of the game.
“For us as the coaching staff, what we realize is the enormous potential with this group and once we mature, we think we’re going to have more consistent success,” Doherty said.
The Bears connected on three of six powerplay opportunities while the Wranglers were unable to do any damage on their attempts. Doherty said the team is not where it needs to be just yet on the power play, but the young squad’s potential is exciting. The Bears’ first three games of the season saw an abysmal 7/42 on the power play (17/74 over nine games), but the past three games saw the team at a 50 per cent success rate, going 7/14.
“We’ve certainly experienced success on our powerplay with our games of late,” said Doherty. “We’re not happy with the execution of our power play in terms of how the puck moves, but somehow we’re putting the pucks in the net, so I guess we have to be happy.”
The Bears will put their undefeated home record (2-0) on the line Sunday at the Fenlands Rec Centre against the Copperheads. Puck drop is 3:30 p.m.
“We’re confident we’re going to be in the mix of the top half of the league and this is one of those games,” said Doherty.
The team will head to Medicine Hat for back-to-back games on Nov. 3-4 to take on the Cubs.
