Kings earn split in first weekend of league play

By Mario Prusina Times Editor

For the first time in 585 days, the Wheatland Kings played a meaningful game in a normal regular season. For now anyway.

The local Junior B team opened the season with a 3-2 home loss to the Cochrane Generals on Sept. 18, before a convincing 5-0 win over the Three Hill Thrashers the following day at the Strathmore Family Centre.

“After going last year and playing six games with Okotoks it made it challenging (because of the pandemic), so to come out and play again was great,” said Kings head coach Ron West. “I have two veteran goalies (who are) very strong so it makes it a lot easier. I have a solid D and some good forward lines.”

The Kings opened the season playing against arguably one of the top teams, Cochrane, keeping the high-flying Generals to three goals. Despite a late push, the Kings could only muster a pair of goals in the loss. 

However, the following day, the Kings opened the flood gates with a 5-0 win over the Thrashers.

As the Heritage Junior Hockey League aims to play a normal regular season, West hopes the Kings can play every game scheduled and work their way to becoming an elite team.

“One (goal) is to make the playoffs and two is to get through the year (without disruption) – I think that’s first and foremost and then playoffs are second,” said West of the team goals. “(We’d like to) get out of the first round for sure and see where we can go with it. I think with COVID, it looks like a lot of these teams are more equal than we expected, so we’ll have a very fair run than previous times.”

The Kings will play their first road game on Sept. 24 (8 p.m.) in Okotoks before returning home to host the Stettler Lightning the following day at 8:30 p.m. at the Strathmore Family Centre.