The Innisfail Eagles had a set of road games this past weekend. Game 1 was Friday night in Carstairs and Game 2 was Saturday night in Bentley.
Carstairs is new to the Chinook League this year. They came together from a rec hockey team in Calgary. Over the summer the players decided that they wanted to play full contact hockey and asked to join the Chinook League.
With Ryan Dodd away this weekend, Dean Turnquist was by himself on the bench coaching the boys. The team really seemed different for the first 40 minutes of the game on Friday. Passes were hitting tape to tape and everyone was talking on the bench and on the ice.
Ryan Kallis opened things up for the Eagles scoring short-handed. Carstairs tied things up four minutes later. Evan Miller made the start in his hometown. Miller made seven saves in the first period to keep the game tied at one.
The second period had even more of a jump in the Eagles’ step. Kallis quickly netted his second of the game with help from Jeff Clazie and Kelly Rogers. Carstairs found the twine again minutes later to tie the game again. Sean Neumeier put the Eagles back on top with a beautiful open net tap-in thanks to a feed from Kallis. Ian Brander made it 4 -2 for the Eagles with helpers going to Rogers and Drew Coles. Miller made 12 saves to help the team keep the lead.
With a bad penalty call five minutes into the third, everything seemed to start to crumble on the bench. The chatter turned into silence very quickly. The team stopped playing for Turnquist and started running around. The running around lost them the game 8 – 4. Miller had to face 27 shots in the third period, stopping 23 of them.
The boys got a little pep talk after the game in order to help prepare them for the Bentley Generals who they would have to face the very next night. The Generals would be more practised and more refined than the team they just saw. They needed to be better and play 60 minutes.
The Gens struck first and struck early. The Eagles’ Tyler Doherty tied things up seconds later with an assist going to Graham Telford. The Eagles then got themselves into penalty trouble and the Gens easily capitalized. The Generals scored four more goals in the first period before the Eagles were able to get out of the box and play hockey. Ryan Kallis netted the Eagles’ second of the game with a helper going to line mate Neumeier. The first frame ended 5-2 in favour of the hometown team. Wade Waters was given the nod for the game and was faced with 32 shots in the first period alone.
The second and third period were all Generals. The Gens scored four in the second and three in the third to take the game 12 – 2. The Eagles were badly outshot by more than 30 shots in the game.
The Eagles are obviously still building and figuring things out on the bench and on the ice. This weekend coming up the team will have a home-and-home set of games against the Northern Eagles of Stony Plain. Stony has beaten Bentley once already this season so these young men have some work ahead of them at practice this week. Friday night’s home game will go at 830 p.m. with doors and beer gardens opening at 8 p.m. For all of you not wanting to come to the game because of the lack of heaters being on, I have been assured that the bleacher heaters will be turned on for Friday night’s game.
The month of November brings Movember. The Eagles will once again be participating in this cancer fundraiser. The team has been registered on the Movember website and donations can be made to the team or to your favourite player. If you would like to help support the Eagles in this project please look us up at http://ca.movember.com . The Eagles will also be donating a portion of each of our November home games’ gates to our Movember team.
Till next week.
