Bisons earn provincial silver medal

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

Doug Taylor Photo

 

The CFR Bisons capped off a fantastic season by capturing a silver medal during the AMHL championship series.
Unfortunately, the medal was not the colour they wanted.
Lloydminster Bobcats goaltender Austin McGrath continued his hot streak in the net as he shutout the CFR Bisons 3-0 in Game 3 at the Strathmore Family Centre on March 24.
The Bobcats swept the league championship series 3-0 and outscored the Bisons 18-0 in the process.
Bisons head coach Sandy Henry said what frustrated the boys was that they did everything right, but couldn’t get the bounces to go their way, where in the other series the goals would go in.
“I thought in the first period we did a way better job getting to second pucks and that guy took them away,” said Henry. “We thought he was good. I didn’t know he was that good because we hadn’t tested him that hard until tonight and he was real good. They had a good defensive scheme that swallows up a lot of pucks after you get your first couple chances and we couldn’t sustain anything.”
The Bisons only scored one goal in six games against the Bobcats this season (including the regular season and the Mac’s Tournament). At times in Game 3, they were impatient when shooting and not taking extra time.
“I thought the guys did a great job of doing what we asked them to do,” said Henry.
“We talked before the game that we were going to face some adversity in this game where potentially they could get ahead of us by a goal and we had time left in the clock. We got a little overzealous around their net a couple of times and got a couple of penalties. They cash in a power play goal and we’re in a hole.”
He added that the pressure faced by the players was a different feeling, and moving forward they’ll take the lesson with them to help them grow as players.
Bisons Captain Kyle Gordon said the first two periods proved they could play with the Bobcats and weren’t that far off from their skill set; however, it was evident there needed to be an extra step to win.
“Obviously we’re upset that we lost,” said Gordon. “The guys are sad but when we look at it in two weeks from now, we’ll see how good of hockey team they are and how we stuck with them in the third game. It’s not an accomplishment, but it doesn’t make it hurt a lot.”