The Meadow Lake Midget AA Stampeders take part in a pre-game ritual prior to their Saturday afternoon contest against Beardy’s. The Stamps went 1-1-1 on the weekend.
by Phil Ambroziak
It was a win, a loss and a tie for the Meadow Lake Midget AA Stampeders on the weekend when they hosted three games at the Meadow Lake and District Arena.
The action kicked off Friday night (Jan. 16) when the Stamps, who are currently ranked sixth overall in the Centre Four Hockey League standings, took on Beardy’s – the number two team in the league.
Meadow Lake opened up the scoring when Alex Vidal was able to beat the Beardy’s goaltender at the 14:17 mark of the first period. Although Beardy’s would tie things up at 11:23, Terence Pedersen made it a 2-1 game in favour of the Stamps at the 8:10 mark. Meadow Lake would score again, courtesy of Shane Hounsell, at 6:22 while William Desjarlais earned another one for the squad at 2:02 to go up 4-1 after 20 minutes.
Meadow Lake would continue to up the ante in the second period when Desjarlais scored his second of the game at 14:54. Meanwhile, Beardy’s would get their lone goal of the period at 10:20.
Much like the second, the third period featured an early Meadow Lake goal when Hounsell lit the lamp at the 18:07 mark. Beardy’s would score two more times, but with less than two minutes remaining, Koby Vidal would cement the 7-4 win for the Stamps.
“This weekend we had a strong performance against Beardy’s Friday night, beating a top-of-the-league team,” remarked Meadow Lake player Garett Cheze. “This proves to the guys we do have potential and are capable of making a run in the playoffs.”
However, a return encounter with Beardy’s the following day (Jan. 17) would tell a different story. In an almost reverse result of what was witnessed the day before, the visiting team downed Meadow Lake 5-2. Scoring for the Stamps were Matt Vidal and Jadyn Trimble.
“When we are skating, we are at the top of our game and, when we are not skating, things don’t go all that great,” Koby Vidal noted. “It came down to how well we did the little things and how bad we actually wanted it. We can’t take any team for granted, it will come down to how much we want it and the effort that we are willing to give.”
The Stamps wrapped up their three-game stretch against the fifth-place Unity AA Midget Lazers on Sunday (Jan. 18), a game that resulted in a 6-6 tie. Diehl Normand scored a hat trick for Meadow Lake while singles were added by Hounsell, Koby Vidal and Cheze.
This Friday (Jan. 23), Meadow Lake is scheduled to take on the first-place North East team in Maidstone.
Meanwhile, Stamps coach Gary Vidal said the entire coaching staff is very pleased with the team’s performance as of late.
“Although we would have loved to get that extra point in the game with Unity, it is another good lesson learned on how we have to finish games outright to the end,” he said. “We are looking forward to our upcoming games and seeing our team perform at this higher level consistently.”
