Yorkton's local area minor girls ice hockey program started their 2013/14 season off with a hot start last week. The Springside Parkland Lions Bantam Girls hockey team kicked off their season with back-to-back wins to start their season as part of the nine team South Saskatchewan Female Hockey League.
The Bantam Lions opened their season with a 6-2 win over the Regina Cougars. The Lions won the game thanks to some balanced scoring from each line in the season opener, with the girls excited to get onto the ice, hard work and hustle helped ease the challenges of working players onto lines with each other for the first time in the season opener.
Jordan Holinaty tallied twice for the Lions to lead the team in scoring on the night, while Tanis Lubenicki, Brooke Hausermann, Regan Nichol, and Janna Keisig all chipped in markers. Alli Thomsen was the playmaker as she picked up three assists, while Sara McNamara backstopped the Lions to the win in goal.
After the win the Lions coaches were very pleased with the potential shown by a team that has added players from all around the Parkland area coming together and putting out a balanced scoring attack in their first game as a team. "This season, we have seven returning players, and added another seven players to the team," stated Coach Dean Shyiak. Shyiak also mentioned the challenges of a team spread out throughout the area making for a different challenge than in a city where some players might have played with each other at the Atom or Pee Wee levels, making putting together what they work on in practice a key to the start of their season. "We have girls from Springisde, Yorkton, Foam Lake, Kamsack, and Churchbridge, so this first game was a chance for the girls to put together the things we've been working on in practice."
Coach Jason Gordon echoed Shyiak and also mentioned that the coaches keyed on playing hard as a way to mask early mistakes and get some momentum going early. "The first game is always a bit of a scramble when you have players who haven't played together before" added Coach Jason Gordon.
"In practice, we stressed coming out with a hard-working, up-tempo, and aggressive approach to the game. We told our girls that we know there will be mistakes because we haven't had time to review all systems or build chemistry yet, but that we want to come out and establish our team identity right away."
"I was impressed with how well we were able to get pucks to the net and follow up the rebounds" added Coach Chad Holinaty. "I think all our goals were scored off the rebound. We set a goal to get at least 10 shots on net each period, and I think we easily got that. We certainly have a lot to work on, but I think it was great to see us get scoring from all our lines."
In their second regular-season game, the Lions donned pink jerseys to raise awareness for Breast Cancer. "This is something we did last year, and the girls though it was a good opportunity to show our support for those affected by cancer," said Holinaty. The Lions were led by Assistant Captain Regan Nichol, who picked up a hat trick in a 7-3 win against the Regina Lions.
Naturally the coaching staff had nothing but praise for their leading scorer on the night. "Regan was great tonight," said Shyiak. "She really led by example, and it was great to see her hard work get rewarded with three goals." Taylor Nagy picked up the win in net for the Lions, while Brooke Hausermann tallied twice, with Olivia Gordon and Jordan Holinaty adding singles to finish off the weekend on a high note for the entire team.
Adding seven new players, the Cougars coaching staff was very excited to see the depth of their squad of the best Bantam girls players in the area. Something that has already paid dividends in an exciting start to a new season for the Lions. "I thought our depth was the key difference tonight," said Holinaty.
"We had points from all three lines, and did a pretty good job of keeping possession in the offensive zone. It was a one goal game going into the third, so it was good to see the girls finish the game well with four goals in the third to pick up the win." The next action for the Lions will be on Wednesday, October 30 when they travel to Regina to take on the Cougars.
