Agra Risk Wheatland Kings take pair of losses over Thanksgiving weekend

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Agra Risk Wheatland Kings lost their most recent pair of games, Oct. 12 and 13, having squared off against Okotoks and Sylvan Lake.

Kings head coach, Doug Raycroft, said these were the two best teams in the league last year and was anticipating some tough competition going into the weekend.

“I think if I was to summarize the weekend, we had some penalty trouble on Friday … they had four powerplay goals and then (on Saturday), we were not very clean on our passes and some of our play,” he said. “To be honest it is still pretty early. We played some of the weaker teams and I think we had some young guys who you could tell when we were four-and-o, everybody thought we were doing amazing, but some of the coaches and older players knew we had not really played some of the tougher teams yet.”

The Kings lost 5-2 against the Okotoks Bisons, and 4-1 against the Sylvan Lake Wranglers respectively. 

Raycroft explained the two games served as a sort of “litmus test” to gauge where the Kings are in the current league standings and how they perform against two of their strongest competitors.

“Okotoks has a lot of talent – we took some penalties and they got four power play goals against us on Friday night and then (on Saturday), it was a close game; we just came up against a good goalie and we fell on the wrong side of the score on that one too,” he said. “I was not upset with our performance, playing two really good teams; you can tell that we are going to get better and these are some of the best teams in the league. Mostly, I was happy with the way that the boys competed and I think going forward, we are just going to try and refine some of our systems and keep improving as we go forward.”

Raycroft added he is eager to see two of his stronger defensemen, Kyle Provencher and Tegan Skehar return to the ice as soon as possible. 

Provencher was out on a shoulder injury which disallowed him from participating, and Skehar was absent and out of province due to family circumstances.

Going forward, Raycroft explained the team will aim to focus on refining their penalty-kills. At the moment, however, due to being still early in the season, the goal is to continue experimenting and give players many chances to play and discover where their strengths are best showcased. 

The Kings will play a home-and-home series with the Coaldale Copperheads on Oct. 18-19. The local Junior B team will open the series at home before traveling to Coaldale the following night. Both games will start at 8 p.m.