By: Terry Martin
The Spruce Grove Saints will play the Fort McMurray Oil Barons two more times this weekend to end their first cohort series. The first game will be at the Grant Fuhr Arena in Spruce Grove at 7:00pm tonight, and the series will finish off Sunday afternoon in Fort McMurray at 4:00pm. After that, both teams will wait for the Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL) to schedule their next cohort series. To stay up to date on when the next games will take place and who the Saints will play, stay tuned to Saints social media for the official announcement.
The first game last weekend featured an unfortunate period which saw the Saints trail 6-2 early. Jake Aston and Brett Pfoh would get the goals for the Saints in the period and Levi Hall would make his AJHL debut. Graham Gamache would get his 6th goal of the year and Pfoh would get his second of the game to bring the final score to 10-4 in favour of the Oil Barons.
The Saints would come back to the Grant Fuhr Arena in the second game of the weekend with a better effort but unfortunately the same result. Luigi Benincasa would get his first of the season and open the scoring for the Saints in the game, but the Oil Barons would score 4 straight to go on and win. Tyler Palmer would end up shining in the third period of the game, making a breakaway save, a cross ice pad save and an unbelievable desperation save with the tip of his stick deep in the crease. The Saints fell by a final score of 4-1.
Players to watch tonight:
For the Saints, Bowling Green State commit Brett Pfoh has 3 goals in 2 games and is hot right now going into tonight’s action.
For the Oil Barons, Michael Hodge has 6 goals 13 assists in the season and leads the league in points. He was also named AJHL player of the month.
Fans can catch all the action on the Saints Radio Network (mixlr.com/sprucegrovesaints), on HockeyTV and at the Canadian Brewhouse in Spruce Grove.