The league semi-finals in the SBAAHL begun last night with the North East Wolfpack taking on the Sask Valley Vipers at the beautiful new Warman Legends Centre. It was the North East Wolfpack drawing first blood with a hard fought 2-1 victory. North East is now just 1 win away from advancing to the league final against either Balgonie Prairie Storm or Melville. Zach Paziuk scored both goals for North East while Terrell Draude got the lone goal for Sask Valley. Special teams could've played a bigger factor as Sask Valley was 1/8 on the PP while North East was just 0/1. Game 2 goes Saturday evening in Melfort.
SBAAHL Semi-finals Schedule
Wed, Mar 14 Melville at Balgonie
Sat, Mar 17 Balgonie at Melville
Sat, Mar 17 Sask Valley at North East
Tues, Mar 20 Melville at Balgonie (If nec)
Tues, Mar 20 North East at Sask Valley
Sask Valley - North East Wolfpack
Sask Valley won the season series vs. North East 2-0-1 (12-7)
Top 5 Scorers in the series
Terrell Draude 54-40-94 Sask Valley
Logan Schatz 16-31-47 Sask Valley
Zach Paziuk 24-16-40 North East
Tristan Elder 17-19-36 North East
Ryan Rothenburger 23-12-35 Sask Valley
Top 2 defenseman scorers in series
Evan Fiala 5-27-32 Sask Valley
Bryce Fiske 5-16-21 North East
Melville - Balgonie
Melville won the season series vs. Balgonie 2-0-0 (10-8)
Top 5 scorers in the series
Jayden Halbgewachs 55-34-89 Balgonie
Rykr Cole 37-35-72 Melville
Donovan Neuls 24-33-57 Melville
Dakota Boutin 24-24-48 Melville
Dawson Davidson 3-40-43 Melville (98 born D)
Top 2 defenseman scorers series
Dawson Davidson 3-40-43 Melville (98 born D)
Nolan Reid 6-16-22 Balgonie (98 born D)
Alberta AMBHL
Calgary Bisons - SSAC Southgate Lions
The Calgary Bisons and SSAC Southgate Lions will meet for the 2nd consecutive year in the AMBHL finals. Last season, SSAC knocked out the Calgary Bisons in 4 games in the best of 5 series. There are only a handful of returning players from both teams as league leading scorer Giorgio Estephan and Clinton Jonah are back from SSAC while the Bisons have Oliver Lester and top 5 ranked for the Bantam draft - Nick Merkley. Last year, Estephan had 2-4-6 in the 4 games and Merkley had no points at all.
The Calgary Bisons have now been in the league finals for 3 straight years while SSAC now has been in the league finals in 4 of the past 5 seasons. The Bisons and SSAC are the past two Alberta representatives at Westerns.
In the only meeting this season, it was SSAC defeating the Bisons 5-4 at the John Reid Memorial Tournament. Bisons back-up goalie Michael Barabash started and allowed 4 goals on 29 shots. Logan Thompson came in early in the 3rd and allowed 1 goal on 4 shots. Thompson has been great in the playoffs and should give the Bisons some much needed great goaltending at the right time of year. For SSAC, Giorgio Estephan and Tyler Benson each had 3 points and have been almost unstoppable from the John Reid Tournament on this year. Nick Merkley had 1-1-2 and 98 born Matthew Phillips had a goal. Phillips has given the Bisons some much needed 2nd line scoring. Something that they will need if they hope to knock off top ranked SSAC.
Top 5 scorers in the series
Giorgio Estephan 43-57-100 SSAC Southgate
Tyler Benson 34-50-84 SSAC Southgate (98 born)
Nick Merkley 41-32-73 Calgary Bisons
Braylon Shmyr 38-31-69 Calgary Bisons
Quinn Greenly 29-29-58 SSAC Southgate
Top 2 defenseman scorers in the series
David Quennville 16-28-44 SSAC Southgate (98 born)
Bradley Forrest 7-18-25 Calgary Bisons
Winnipeg Bantam Hockey
The Winnipeg Warriors are the champions of the Winnipeg AAA league after defeating the Winnipeg Monarchs in five games. They will now move on to the provincial finals to be played on March 23-25. They will await the winner of the Rural AAA championships which are to play played this weekend in Morden, MB. The Rural championships will be a tournament format with 9 teams taking part. The favourites to represent the rural Manitoba area have to be the Pembina Valley Hawks led by first round prospect Colt Conrad. The Brandon Wheat Kings and Eastman Selects also have to be considered good bets to move on as well.
The Winnipeg Hawks are the bantam 2 division winners this year. The bantam 2 division in Winnipeg is made up of 98 born players who are draft eligable in the 2013 bantam draft. To nobodies surprise the Hawks take it in 4 straight led by first round rated prospect Nolan Patrick as well as Vince Loschaivo, Conner Barley and perhaps the top 98 born goalie in western Canada - Ryan Kubic. In the clinching game last night it was Nolan Patick scoring twice, Linden McCorrister with 2 goals as well as Chase Brakel. Ryan Kubic turned aside all 30 shots for his second shut-out of the finals.
USA Pacific T1 District Championships
The Pacific District Championships wrapped up over the weekend and it will be the L.A. Selects moving on to Nationals once again this year with a 6-0 win over the L.A. Jr Kings in the final. The Selects had no problems in coming out of the pacific region in winning all 4 games in districts beating the California Titans 8-1, Wenatchee Wild 6-1 and then the Jr. Kings 5-0 and 6-0. Led by the likes of D- Keoni Texeira and F - Robby Jackson, the Selects could have a pretty decent chance of winning it all. It is our belief that if Texeira and Jackson were Canadian born, they would be hands down high first round bantam picks.
The Selects will join the Dallas Stars Elite who upset the Colorado Thunderbirds in the Rocky Mountain distict finals.
10 comments:
That's one loooooooong bench on the LA team!
Sask Valley got 8 power plays and NorthEast 1?
The rink is new but it sounds like the same old, legendary officiating in Warman.
Is it just me, or does the LA selects have a crazy huge roster/team. WOW!
SBAAHL should try to do something about the officating in Warman because it was obvious that they were trying to win the game for the Vipers, but the Wolfpack players through hard work didn't let it happen.
The referees were not from Warman, and are league-assigned. Maybe NE deserved 8 penalties?
there is no question the Wolfpack deserved the penalties they got... It was all the 'non' calls, waved off icings and missed off sides that was evident at the game. The game itself was played equally hard by both teams and was at times overshadowed by the decisions of the officials.
If I'm not mistaken Praire Storm 6 Melville 0.
In the Rocky Mountain District, the Dallas Stars beat the Arizona Bobcats team in a game that went to two overtimes. The Colorado Thunderbirds did not make the championship game in the U14 division.
March 14, 2012 6:48 PM
The referees are not league assigned in the SBAAHL. Warman has been notorius for years in having bad officiating, or home team based, and it has continued all season. While the refs for this game may not have been directly from Warman, they would have been from close proximity.
i have been around the game a long time and i can honestly say that dating back over nearly 30 years, i have never come out of warman rink feeling like we werent cheated or endangered. everyone in the whole province cannot be wrong. and those little ******* up there play the game knowing full well they will get every break. even warman people admit it.
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