CAMROSE – The underdog Canmore Eagles advanced to the second round after stunning the Camrose Kodiaks in Game 7.
The No. 6 ranked Eagles won 3-1 against the No. 3 Kodiaks on Tuesday night (March 15) on the road to take the series and set up a date with the Brooks Bandits.
“I think outside of Game 1, we played six of our best hockey games all year,” said Andrew Milne, head coach and general manager. “We deserved it. I give the guys credit, they deserved to win and, in my opinion, they were the better team and I’m just happy they got rewarded for all the effort they put in.”
Milne added it was a “complete team effort” that helped put the final nail in the coffin of the Kodiaks.
“We didn’t make a lot of mistakes tonight and the ones that we did, [goalie Andreai Proctor-Ramirez] was able to bail us out on and going into the series that’s what we talked about,” said Milne. “We also knew we weren’t going to score a lot of goals, it’s not something our team has done all year, so everyone committed to playing the right way and our energy level got higher and higher as the game went on.”
Mitchell Watson, Isaac Suppin, and Carter Myrol scored for the Eagles in Game 7. Emanuel Hudson, Vincent Scott, and Brayden Plaschewsky each had an assist.
AJHL Goalie of the Year finalist, Proctor-Ramirez, made 27 saves in his first AJHL playoff series win.
“We felt like we had a lot of the momentum coming into the game and we’ve been playing well in like the last four games, for sure,” said Proctor-Ramirez. “We knew that we were wearing them down and we just had to stick to the game plan and we were confident in that plan and it worked out for us in the end.”
Proctor-Ramirez added that stopping 47 shots in Game 6 was a major confidence booster heading into the do-or-die situation.
“The first couple games I wasn’t getting a lot of shots, but I feel like that game really helped my confidence level and got me into the zone,” he said.
The Eagles will face the Bandits in the second round starting this Friday (March 15) in Brooks.
In the regular season, Canmore went 0-6-0 against the AJHL’s top team, who had a first-round bye and haven’t played since Feb. 26.
Proctor-Ramirez said if they want success against Brooks, the Eagles will need to make it a physical series.
“Their backend is very skilled and they’re skilled throughout their team and I think we have to make it hard on them; lay some body and maybe give them a couple bumps and bruises and that’s probably going to be our main focus is finishing our checks,” he said.
The Bandits have a familiar face on the bench in assistant coach Evan McFeeters, who’s from Canmore, and served as the Eagles assistant coach and assistant general manager for five seasons before departing the organization to join Brooks in 2020.
Game 2 is Saturday (March 16) in Brooks, and Games 3 and 4 are Tuesday and Wednesday (March 22 and 23) in Canmore. Puck drop for both home games is at 7 p.m.
If necessary, Game 5 is March 26 in Brooks; Game 6 is March 29 in Canmore at 7 p.m.; and Game 7 is April 1 in Brooks.
The Eagles are without forward Riley Dekowny for the first two games of the series as he's currently serving a three-game suspension for a blow to the head major penalty in Game 6 of the Kodiaks series. Dekowny is tied for most points on the Eagles in these playoffs with eight.
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