By Clark Stork

Tough Weekend

Hawks swept in weekend set with Ice Wolves

Jan 23, 2022 | 2:38 PM

The weekend did not go well for the Hawks who dropped both games of a home-and-home series with La Ronge.

Saturday the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) club lost 4-2 on the road, that followed a 4-1 loss on home ice Friday. Assistant coach Bart Rushmer said on the post-game show that the Hawks started well but couldn’t maintain momentum for the whole game.

“We came out early, came out strong and got the lead. It’s been a long time since we’ve played with a lead early in the game but unfortunately we let it slip away in the second,” Rushmer said.

Nipawin hasn’t scored first since Dec. 14 when they edged Yorkton 5-4 in overtime. The club has responded after the first intermission in recent performances, but Saturday in La Ronge the tide turned. Kye Whillans opened the scoring in the first period on the powerplay with his second goal of the season.

La Ronge was the team that needed the intermission to regroup, and the Ice Wolves scored three times in the middle period opening a 3-1 lead. Rushmer said the Hawks stopped looking after each aspect of the game.

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“We weren’t doing the little things right, getting pucks deep, checking, finishing hits, that sort of thing. Pucks on net, small things that are correctable, but it’s got to be a conscious effort to correct things,” he said.

The Ice Wolves scored early in the third period to open the gap to 4-1. Joel Mabin drew the Hawks to within two with his eighth goal of his rookie SJHL season to cap the scoring.

The Hawks sit in 11^th place in the SJHL standings with 18 games to play. La Ronge used the four points they gained in the two wins to vault into seventh place, five points up on Nipawin. The Hawks are three points back of Melville for the final postseason spot. Rushmer said losing these games in critical games makes the weekend’s results disappointing.

“This time of year when you are playing with teams at the same level in the standings it’s difficult to lose to them. It’s something we need to learn and hopefully we learn some lessons,” Rushmer added.

Nipawin is in Kindersley on Wednesday to face the Klippers, another team vying for one of the final playoff spots. Faceoff is 7:30 p.m. at the West Central Events Centre. The game will be broadcasted on Saskatchewan’s New Beach Radio beginning at 7:15 p.m.

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clark.stork@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @ClarkStork