A two-game road trip to Melville featuring two different results started off the Westmoreland Coal Company Estevan Bruins peewee AA hockey team’s season.
The Bruins began the trip with a 7-2 loss to the Melville Millionaires at Merv Moore Sportsplex on Saturday. A day later the Black and Gold nearly reversed the score to defeat Melville 6-3 at the Horizon Credit Union Centre.
Mike Merriman, co-coach of the Bruins, said the team showed good resiliency on the trip. He said in the second game they were up 3-1 and the Millionaires came back to tie it with 18 minutes left in the third, but the kids didn’t get down on themselves and pulled out the win thanks to a shorty by Riley Niven, an even strength marker by Turner McMillen and a power play goal also by McMillen.
Merriman said the point of weakness he noticed during the road trip is the Bruins’ penalty kill. He said they ended up with six goals going against them on the PK and that has to change moving forward.
On the other hand, the Bruins ability to maintain pressure on their opponent’s goal is something their coach likes. He said their speed and drive to get shots on net, they recorded 36 in the first game and 48 in the second, is a great thing to see this early in the year.
Merriman said if the kids can improve their backchecking, movement on quick line changes and respect the referees by going straight to the box when a penalty is called against them, they should be good moving forward.
“We’ll work on those things,” he said. “That will really take care of our team moral and team culture. Then the wins will take care of themselves after that.”
The Bruins will host a peewee AA tournament Oct. 23 to 25 that will see a team from Brandon, Saskatoon and three clubs from Regina take part, with the potential of more clubs coming as well. That will be their only home dates until Dec. 5, meaning they are starting the majority of their 27 game season on the road.
Merriman said that top-heavy away schedule is fine with him as they’ll get a lot of the road dates done before the snow flies. In the meantime, the focus is on giving the 11 and 12-year-old players on the team an introduction into the next step of their game.
