Black Aces Cap Season With Provincial Gold

Hockey Top Stories

The Saskatoon Black Aces capped their season with a Provincial title on Friday night thanks to an 8-7 win in Regina.

After winning the city championship earlier in the week the Bantam AA Aces had a chance to add a provincial title to their resume, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished in recent memory in the Saskatoon Minor Hockey Association.

The Aces entered the contest with a healthy lead in the two game total-goal play-off thanks to a 6-1 victory the week before in Toon-Town.

Puck dropped just before 7:45 at the Co-operators Centre in the Queen City with the teams feeling each other out in the opening moments. It wasn’t until 7:17 of the opening period that the Aces’ Braydon Buck would find the back of the net giving Saskatoon first blood in the contest.

However, less than three minutes later the Aces would be faced with their first taste of adversity as a five-minute boarding major was assessed against the team resulting in not only a game misconduct but also a full five-minute power play for Regina. The Queen City Kids would make good on that power-play tying the game at 1-1, at 14:14 of the opening period. That was the only time they would score on the long man advantage. The score would then hold until the buzzer sounded to end the first period.

Turn to the second period where #44 Layton would restore the Aces lead 6:16 into the frame, however, the boys from the Bridge City would be assessed another major penalty and game misconduct, like in the first period, and be forced into another long-penalty kill. BUT just two minutes into the kill the Aces would capitalize on a mistake and walk in and score to make it 3-1 with 9:40 to go in the second-period, halfway home! The Aces weren’t done their either as just five seconds later on the same penalty kill #40 would score his second goal in a row to extend the Aces lead to 4-1. The Aces would continue to pour it on as #48 would tally with just over 7-minutes to go to extend their lead to 5-1. Before the buzzer could sound, though, the two teams would exchange goals, Regina scoring at 13:45 while the Aces tallied with just 40.1 seconds left in the frame. The Aces would head to the dressing room with a 6-2 lead.

Into the final frame where the Aces could smell the provincial banner, but Regina was not going to lay down on home ice.

After a spirited start to the frame Regina would start to make the most of their chances scoring three goals in 4-minutes and 24 seconds to cut the Aces lead to 6-5. Saskatoon would respond, however, as #49 would add some insurance for Saskatoon scoring 29 seconds after Regina had made it a one goal game giving the Aces some breathing room. Regina, though to their credit, continued to pour it on despite having a player ejected with just over two minutes to go. With the net empty Regina was able to score and cut the lead to one but with only 6-point-7 seconds remaining in the game the writing was on the wall.

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The puck was dropped the buzzer sounded and for the first time in recent memory an SMHA team won both the City and Provincial championships in the same season.

Congratulations again to the entire Black Aces team on a fantastic season. Coach Chris Anderson, Gradin Anderson, Brayden Buck, Joshua Edwards, Jacob Fergusson, Dallyn Ledoux, Carson Mausch, Mark Middlebrook, Josh RedIron, Justin Ritchie, Lathan Sapieha, Ethan Serfas, Jack Shurgot, Ethan Sommerfeldt, Adam Teichroeb, Brandon Von Hagen, Cole Youngman and Adam McNutt.