Regina Pat Canadians, Moose Jaw Winmar Warriors open Telus Cup West regionals with wins

The Regina Pat Canadians showed off their dominance from start to finish as they opened up their Telus Cup West Regionals tournament with a 13-1 win over the Thunder Bay Kings.

Regina, who are the defending national champions, put up seven goals in the first period over the Hockey Northwestern Ontario representatives.

“It’s not how I expected the game to go. Things went our way and I thought our compete was good,” Regina head coach Ryan Hodgins said. “When the game goes that way, the biggest thing is not creating bad habits and playing the right way and moving pucks and doing the right things and playing with respect as well.”

As the host team, the Pat Canadians had a spot locked into the tournament all season. That wasn’t good enough for the team to only get in by virtue of that, with the team winning the Saskatchewan Male U18 AAA Hockey League title for a second straight season. They defeated the Moose Jaw Winmar Warriors in their best-of-five series 3-2.

Nathan Gardiner, Liam Pue, Jett Donison, Malaki Martin, Grady Hodgins all scored goals in the opening frame while Maddox Schultz had a pair of goals.

Schultz and Pue just finished playing Tuesday and Wednesday night with the WHL’s Regina Pats in their first round series against the Medicine Hat Tigers.

In the second period, Regina added to their lead as Hodgins and Martin scored their second goals of the game while Xavier Doane also found the back of the net.

Thunder Bay did get onto the scoreboard with Mikita Dolmat scoring in the second period.

In the final period, Brodie Brown scored while Martin added two more to bring his total to four goals.

“It’s tricky (playing in a game like that). We dominated them. It was a good game — I thought they played hard but it’s hard to stick with it sometimes but I thought we did a good job out there,” Martin said.

Earlier in the afternoon, Moose Jaw earned a crucial 6-3 win in their opening game of the tournament.

Moose Jaw came into the game as the SMAAAHL representative after making the league finals. They would meet the Winnipeg Bruins, the Manitoba U18 AAA Hockey League champions, in the first game.

Before the tournament started, Moose Jaw stressed how crucial this opening game would be in this sort of format.

“Starting off 1-0, it’s obviously a good start, especially when your first three games dictate how Sunday is going to go. Getting the win first was crucial, and we did it, and it was good on us,” said Moose Jaw captain Ryan Gibbs.

The Warriors jumped out to an early lead in the game with Maxx Fuessel scoring a power-play goal just 3:37 into the opening period. Moose Jaw added to that lead just over a minute later with Gibbs beating Winnipeg goaltender Logan German.

Winnipeg battled back as Crewe Schimnowski scored to get the Manitoba representative on the board.

In the second period, Maxon Johnston once again scored early in the frame as he extended the Warriors’ lead to two once again, just 3:52 into the period.

But Winnipeg battled back with Trevor Toyne and Mateo Ferriera beating Moose Jaw goaltender Steven Wawryk twice to tie things at three.

Moose Jaw was able to pull away in the third period as Carson Deichert and Tobin Schaefer scored their first goals of the tournament, while Gibbs added his second of the game.

“A little bit of a roller coaster there. I thought we came out really well. Late in the first (and) second wasn’t ideal. I thought we got away from what made us successful in the first period, and then in the third, I thought we were real good,” Warriors head coach Trevor Weisgerber said

Gibbs was also happy with how the team responded in the final frame.

“It was a good full group effort in the room. We’re just saying we need every man. If there’s one passenger, we don’t win that game, right? It was a good team effort,” Gibbs said.

It will be a rematch of the SMAAAHL finals on Friday night in the tournament as the Warriors and Pat Canadians once again do battle. Puck drop for that one is set for 7:30 p.m.

“I expect a battle. Moose Jaw is going to be hungry and they are going to come hard. It’s going to be a good game,” Martin said.

The Moose Jaw Winmar Warriors beat the Winnipeg Bruins 6-3 in their first game of the Telus Cup West Regionals. (Britton Gray/980 CJME)