Our ‘Buffaloes’ had a successful weekend in two very different ways playing league games at home on Oct 5 & 6…!
The Male team has reached a really nice stride since a tough weekend a few weeks ago in Minneapolis! Wins on the weekend against a very good Prairie Hockey Academy of 4-0 and 3-1 has put our Male Buffs in a top spot position in early CSSHL standings.
This ‘varsity’ boys’ team has worked very hard over the last 4 weeks on both positioning and skill development. This year’s team has taken to heart the things the coaching staff of Rick McConnell and Ernie Sutherland [with head academy coach / GM Rod Collins] have dropped on them. The result is a speedy, quick puck moving team than we had seen even just a month ago! Main point getters over the weekend for the male team were: Keilan Holland and Nicholas McKee with 5 points each; Seth Falkevitch 4 points [the newly dubbed 10,11,12 line] and from the defence Captain Tynan Ewart with 2 points!
Both starting goalies Jordan McGinnis and Jozse Gauthier-Urmos had a reasonably easy time of it sitting behind a much more motivated and positionally sound defensive scheme. A goalie wishes that he, 1st see the puck when shot & then after the save, have any rebounds left over dealt with. The wishes came true on this weekend. G’Urmos recorded his 1st win of the early season in two games with McGinnis recording two shutouts in his 1st games for a [perfect 1.000% gaa!
Although our Female team took a bit of a thumping on the weekend from the ‘far and away’ best team in CSSHL female varsity hockey, the Rink Hockey Academy, we found a bit of scoring punch, a lot of good coming from only a month’s worth of skill and team development for this very ‘young Buffaloes team. Conditioning appears to be an issue at the moment, as noticeable team collapses in the last period of both games hurt on the scorecard [6-3 and 8-2]. Goalie Heaven Moneyas and the rest of our female team has gladly welcomed new goalie partner Kendra Nordick from Grand Forks and the North Dakota all-star travelling team.
The other exciting news from the weekend was the release of Manitoba’s GameOn magazine where on page 92 there’s a wonderful ‘Buffaloes’ organization four-page family testimonial from the McGinnis Family.
Along with the testimonial, there’s a real good look at how this million$ hockey academy industry has affected the local and regional economy. Highlights for this would include: $273,000 to PMCI in the past four years and continuing every year now; Over $150,000 in ‘new’ ice rental at the Millennium Recreation Centre in four years; economics tells us that the value of the $’s recycling in the town and adjacent region is at $9 million to date.
Our two teams have games close by on the weekend of Oct 11-13 in Pilot Mound [males] and Morden [female] which we’ll report on next week!
Remember you can ‘Live Stream’ all of our Pilot Mound Hockey Academy home games on both Amateur Sports TV & on our website… on the road you can follow us live as well on Hockey TV [a subscription station] showcasing amateur hockey all throughout North America…!
Please feel free to visit our website at www.pilotmoundhockeyacademy.com for full team, player, league and sponsor information… and when you get a chance please SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS allowing them to continue supporting our community and our team.
