Friday's game against the Killam Wheat kings was the first out of seven games in the second round of playoffs for the Lac La Biche Junior B Clippers. It was also the first of two home games to start the series. The game proved to have some home ice advantage for the Clippers who won 6-4.
Sunday's home game however, didn't go in the Clippers' favour as the short benched team suffered from a lot of penalties and some bad judgments by the refs, says Clippers head coach Stan Houle. The Clippers lost 7-4.
"It was tough one, penalty troubles... a lot of emotion. They are young guys and don't know how to keep their cool. Killam's bench riled them up, they knew what they were doing," said Houle, adding that a few calls went against his team, including a roughing incident where a Wheat Kings player dodged what he — and the booing home town crowd — thought should have been a tougher call. "There were some bad decisions made as well. The Killam guy who should've been suspended only got two minutes penalty. You heard the fans, they knew it wasn't us," said Houle.
The Clippers coach was still happy with the split with Killam as he mentioned that's what they knew they would be aiming for with a short bench, with two of the team's high impact guys — forward Brody Rosychuk and defender Ty Thompson — are out for suspensions. The Clippers will play Killam this Wednesday and Friday on Wheat Kings ice.
"It would've been nice going up with a 2-0 in series but we will take the split. We knew we were short-handed so, I said if we split we are still okay. That was our goal. We won one game and we will be okay because every game we play, we are going to get better as the boys are coming back. We will see what we do in Killam," said the coach.
After the Killam games, both the teams will return to Lac La Biche on Sunday, March 10 for their fifth game in round two playoffs.
Houle knows that discipline will be one of the keys to getting the advantage in the series.
"If the team can't play with discipline, learn how to put bad calls behind them, take a hit or slash and get used to chippy hockey, there will be no success," he said while advising his team after Sunday's rough game.
