(Ben Tompkins/northeastNOW)

By Ben Tompkins

Into the quarter-finals

Mustangs win chaotic affair over Rockland, end round-robin Wednesday against Valleyfield

May 13, 2025 | 10:52 PM

The Melfort Mustangs took down the Rockland Nationals on Tuesday in a game that took nearly four full hours to complete.

The reason, a lengthy delay minutes before the first period was set to expire, due to major ice issues and a change of venue.

“That was hectic, that was crazy, ice problems, long delay, you go play a minute shift, and then all of a sudden they flood again, it was a lot. The biggest thing, though, is that we started to find our game in the second and the third, and we dominated. You’ve got to give them credit, they’re fast, they’re skilled, and they’re always on top of you, so we had to adjust in the third, and it showed in the five-to-two result,” said assistant coach Tye Scherger.

“I feel we’ve been getting better as the tournament has gone on, at the start I think with the cameras we were maybe a bit cocky, and we wanted to be overly-skilled, but now we’re getting back to the way we play, which is awesome to see and I’m excited for the coming days.”

The coming days for the Mustangs are now guaranteed to feature a quarter-final game at the very least, as with their in earlier today and an Edmundston Blizzard loss to the Calgary Canucks this evening, Melfort will finish top-three in their respective group.

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Unfortunately, however, they can’t finish first now, as the best they can do is tie Calgary in points, however, the Canucks would have the tiebreaker over the Stangs due to their win over them on the opening day of the tournament.

So, for now, the Blue and Green will turn their attention to Wednesday’s contest against Braves de Valleyfield, their final round-robin game of this year’s Centennial Cup.

“I’ll tell you one thing, they’ve got a great power play, they have a great percentage, and they want to get lots of shots and tip down low, so the biggest thing is to stay disciplined, and if we get short-handed, we gotta be brilliant on our kill,” Scherger added.

“We’re a really deep team, and we trust every single player in the locker room. Absolutely everyone played good, and just the character and heart in the dressing room, we told them before Rockland that if they didn’t perform, we could be missing the playoffs, so they just played in a desperate mode there in the last period, so it’s awesome to see (and we’re excited to be in the playoff round).”

Puck drop Wednesday between the Mustangs and the Braves is set for shortly after 4 p.m., with the pregame show to begin at roughly 3:45 p.m.

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On X @BenTompkins_8