Nearly a month had passed since the Yorkton Sherring Gold Terriers of the SSMHL Peewee Division last took to the ice for a regular season game, most recently defeating the rival Melville Millionaires 5-2 back on October 23.
However the lull in league play didn't seem to hurt the Sherring Gold Terriers as they picked up right where they left off, sweeping a two game weekend series with the Weyburn Youngfellow Wings, taking Game One 4-3 on Saturday afternoon and Game Two 6-2 on Sunday in enemy territory.
The two wins give Yorkton a 6-1-0 record through seven games this season and 12 points, good enough to sit tied atop the SSMHL Peewee Division with the Swift Current Â鶹´«Ã½AVwest Terminal Broncos (5-0-2).
Moose Jaw (3-3-2) sits third with eight points, followed by Weyburn (2-3-1) with five and Estevan (1-5-1) with three.
Melville holds down the last spot in the six-team league with an 0-5-0 record and zero points.
Sluggish start Saturday
The end result may have been positive on Saturday with the Yorkton Sherring Gold Terriers skating to a 4-3 victory, however the start was not one that head coach Ryan Hoffman expected from his team; even if they arrived at the rink much later than planned. "We definitely got off to a slow start due to unforeseen circumstances," mentioned Hoffman, suggesting that the bus troubles the team endured played a large part in the slow start. "We got to the rink just about a half an hour before game time so it threw us out of our regular routine a little bit.
"We scrambled and got out on the ice late and it probably took us a good period or period and a half to get our legs and to get playing a little closer to how we expect ourselves to play."
Weyburn took advantage of the sluggish start as Rylan Erb beat Yorkton netminder Kael DePape just over two minutes into the game for a 1-0 Wings lead.
The Wings doubled their lead with 4:15 remaining in the opening frame when Steven Kesslering also found a way to beat DePape, this time via the powerplay to make it 2-0 for the homeside.
The two goal lead was short lived however, as the Sherring Gold Terriers responded exactly one minute later with a powerplay tally of their own as Jackson Berezowski beat Weyburn goaltender Jordan Muhr for the first of two goals in the game and third of the season to send the Terriers into the first intermission down just one goal.
Weyburn regained their two goal advantage 3:37 into the second period when their leading scorer Ethan Ernst found a chink in the DePape armour to make it 3-1 Weyburn.
The Wings two goal lead looked as if it would carry over into the third period, but two quick Terrier goals, one each by Ryder Korczak and Berezowski, drew the game even at threes heading into the final 20 minutes.
The Korczak goal in particular, a shorthanded effort to pull the Terriers to within one, was one that really helped turn the flow of play around. "Ryder Korczak got a shorthanded goal for us there to make it 3-2 and we definitely got some life from that," offered Hoffman. "Then we scored another goal off of a set play to tie it up so we were feeling pretty good about ourselves going into the third period, especially after the tough start that we had."
The two late second period markers definitely took the wind out of the Weyburn sails as the Terriers completely dominated the third period, highlighted by a Mitchel Madsen powerplay goal midway through the final frame, his sixth of the season, which turned out to be the game winner in a 4-3 come-from-behind Sherring Gold Terrier triumph.
Six goal Sunday
While Saturday's game saw the Sherring Gold Terriers come out slow, Sunday saw them come out firing on all cylinders. "Our effort on Sunday was just about as complete an effort as we have had all year," said the Sherring Gold Terrier bench boss. "I thought from wire to wire we were in control. We were skating, we were checking, we shot the puck, our powerplay was very productive and everything was clicking on Sunday for sure."
Tanner Hoffman opened the scoring on Sunday for the Terriers just over three minutes into the game with his first of two in the game.
The host Wings would draw even at the exact midway point of the period when Ethan Ernst beat Spencer Welke to make it a 1-1 game.
However Yorkton would score the next five goals, two by Ryder Korczak and one each off the sticks of Hoffman, Josh Herman and Tony Roebuck while Weyburn could only muster one goal in response by Tyler Domes in a 6-2 Terrier thrashing of the Wings.
Spencer Welke picked up the win in the game to move his record to 3-0-0 while Matthew Dutchak shouldered the loss for the Wings, dropping his personal record to 1-1-1.
Up next
The next action for the Yorkton Sherring Gold Terriers (6-1-0) will be Wednesday, December 3 when they host the visiting Melville Millionaires (0-5-0) at the Farrell Agencies Arena for a 7:30p.m. start.
