The Parkland Lions opened their Â鶹´«Ã½AV Saskatchewan Female Hockey League (SSFHL) with a 3-0 shutout of the Regina Blues Sunday afternoon in Churchbridge.
The Lions tallied goals each period, with markers from Brooke Hausermann, Olivia Gordon and Sidney Shyiak while goalie Taylor Nagy backstopped the Lions to the shutout victory.
Despite being held to three goals in the contest, the Lions dominated both time of possession and positional play throughout the contest, something head coach Chad Holinaty noticed. "For our first game, I thought we did a good job of controlling the play and keeping the puck in their end" said the Lions head coach. "Our forwards did a pretty good job of putting pucks deep into their zone and then forechecking fairly well.
We want our defence to be active, and they held the line and kept them hemmed in. The best example of how that paid off was on our second goal, where we kept the puck in their zone, wore them down, and it led to a good finish by Liv (Olivia Gordon)."
"At the start of the game, we talked about establishing our identity" said assistant coach Dean Shyiak. "We know we have some work to do, such as finishing our scoring chances, being in better position and being more disciplined, but the biggest goal we had today was to demonstrate our identity as a hard-working, competitive group. I think we did that today."
The home opener was also an opportunity for the Lions to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer research. The Lions donned pink jerseys, and collected $275.00 that will be donated to the Canadian Cancer Society.
The next action for the Lions will be on October 29 when they travel to Regina to take on the Regina Tigers.
