By / Ryan Laverty
The delivery might have been a bit more forceful than necessary, but by the time the Southside Athletic Club Southgate Lions finished with the MLAC Maple Leafs on Oct. 15, the message was heard loud and clear around the province.
If you want a shot at a Bantam AAA championship in Alberta this season, you’re going to need to muster some serious marksmanship on Edmonton’s south-end first.
Led by second-year forwards Brandon Magee and Ryan Berlin, SSAC rolled over the Leafs 10-3 in the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League’s first significant rivalry match-up of the young season.
“Certainly I do think that we could have some success against the Maple Leafs this year, but definitely not to the extent we saw that night,” said SSAC head coach Dwayne Inglehart, back for his second season with the club. “I would say definitely knowing that it was a battle for first place it was important to our guys, and I think it showed on the ice. We played probably our best game of the year and I think that, combined with the Leafs not getting a lot of things going, led to that sort of result.”
Regardless, at press time, the Lions were the only remaining undefeated team in the AMBHL and after dismantling their division’s second-place club so handily Inglehart had to be happy with the start. Didn’t he?
“I’d say our record looks a lot better than we do,” said Inglehart, who spent a decade coaching the PAC Timberwolves before joining the Lions last season. “Things still aren’t clicking as smoothly as we’d like them to be. It’s coming along, but I think we’ve been taking more chances than necessary in our own zone and that’s probably kept us from walking away with more games than we have.”
Inglehart credited his goaltending duo of Mark Valtr and Curtis Honey with backstopping some sloppy play inside their own blue line and suggested time and experience will work out the rest of the kinks for the Lions.
In addition to Magee, Berlin and Valtr, only Arthur Gordon and defenceman Dane Phaneuf returned from last year’s Lions squad, meaning the team is still very much in an adjustment phase and on the road to improvement. A scary thought for the rest of the AMBHL to be sure.
“Obviously I expected us to be successful, so I’m happy with the start, but there are a lot things our guys still need to learn to play at this level every night,” said Inglehart. “We’re getting there, but we still have a lot of work to do.”
At press time the Lions sat alone in first, with the Scott Pump Maple Leafs still holding second spot in the Nitro North with a 6-3-0 record. The St. Albert Gregg Distributors Sabres rounded out the top three with a 4-1-0 record. |
