Bisons off to perfect start

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

After watching the curtain being pulled away from Markus Lavallee’s #17 jersey, it was evident the CFR Bisons wanted to win the home opener for their late teammate, as emotions ran high.
The players did exactly that as they battled hard against the Calgary Royals and strong goaltending to win 2-1.
While assistant coach Dave Attwood realized the effect the events had on the players, which he believes contributed to a slow start, the team found their rhythm as the game wore on.
“There was a lot going on in the kids’ minds,” said Attwood. “It was their first game, so it was a bit nerve wracking for some. I think it was tough for them to get into it, it was maybe a bit of a slow start. Eventually when you start playing the game, you start forgetting about other things and play hockey … the other things kind of fall out of your mind.”
Attwood added the players’ effort was sound as the team battled hard against the Royals, who pushed hard on the Bisons early.
“When the guys realized we were in a battle, they took it up a notch,” said Attwood. “I thought we had a lot of scoring chances and their goalie did a good job for their team keeping the game tight. We could’ve got one or two more I think.”
Captain Kyle Gordon and Brent Trentham scored in the win.
On Sunday afternoon, the Bisons were involved in a penalty parade at home against a physical Medicine Hat Tigers squad, and got a lot of work on the power play and penalty kill and were able to pull out a 6-2 win.
“We haven’t worked on a lot of that kind of stuff,” said Attwood. “Today was about keeping it simple and playing the game as it unfolded. We did take way more penalties than we would like to, we’ll work on that also because that’s something we want to get used to.”
Attwood said passing is one of their strengths and the close support enabled them to make those plays to get out of trouble, but when they tried to stretch the play out, it caused a lot of turnovers.
“If we learn to do that in a whole game effort, we’re going to be better,” he said.
Local first year player Kaden Hanas thought the two wins were a great way to salute Markus and that he was looking down proudly.
“We just thought ‘what would Markus want?'” said Hanas. “He wouldn’t want us playing brutal, he’d want a win for sure, especially with all the hype. It was good of us to do this for Markus.”
Hanas admittedly took a bad penalty a few shifts into Game 2, before scoring a beautiful goal off a nice feed for his first of the season.
“It felt good, especially seeing it go off the bar and down,” said Hanas. “After a bad penalty I took there, it took the pressure off me to do something.”
Gordon led the way with three goals, while Hanas, Gary Haden and Jackson Salt rounded out the offense.
The Bisons will be on the road this weekend where they face the Lloydminster Bobcats on Oct. 10 (4:15 p.m.) and back in Edmonton on Oct. 11 to face the CAC Gregg Distributors at 2:15 p.m.