The Humboldt Broncos ventured north last week and came home with a win and a shootout loss.
The Broncos played the LaRonge Ice Wolves in front of 559 fans in LaRonge on November 22, and ended up on the winning end of a 6-5 score.
Humboldt kicked off scoring with a goal at 8:54 of the first period, scored by Logan Sproule. Ryan Marshall and Andrew Johnston got the assists.
The Wolves tied the game with a goal at 12:50 of the first, but the Broncos took back the lead with a goal by Andrew Herle at 15:30. Assisting once again were Johnston and Marshall.
In the second, LaRonge not only tied things up, they took the lead for a short time with goals at 5:43 and 11:38.
Then Johnston got a goal of his own at 13:22, assisted by Herle and Marshall, to tie things up again.
Matt Glowa put the Broncos back in the lead with a power play goal at 15:04. Mathew Backhouse and John Lawrence assisted.
In the third, the Wolves made it a 4-4 game with a goal at 3:40, but Humboldt's Lawrence put his team back in the driver's seat with a goal at 6:17, assisted by Joey Davies and Glowa.
They added an insurance goal at 14:18, scored by Davies, and assisted by Lawrence and Glowa, so when the Wolves scored again on Humboldt netminder Matt Hrynkiw at 16:30, the scoreboard remained in the Broncos' favour until the final buzzer.
Penalties were minimal, but shots on goal were plentiful, with the Broncos making 41 and the Wolves, 37.
The Broncos were slightly better on the power play, going one for three, while the Wolves were zero for three.
Herle and Johnston were both named among the three stars of the game.
The very next night, the Broncos were in Flin Flon to take on the Bombers. Despite a never-say-die attitude, the Broncos fell to the Bombers 4-3.
There was no scoring at all in the first period of the game, as the well-matched teams battled it out.
Humboldt finally scored their first point of the contest at 4:48 of the second. Neil Landry got the goal, assisted by Logan Sproule and Adam Antkowiak.
Flin Flon leveled things out again with a goal at 6:18, but just a few seconds later, a brawl broke out on the ice.
When the dust settled, Humboldt's Joey Davies got five minutes for fighting and a game misconduct, as did Andrew Allan of the Bombers, all at 6:26 of the second. Broncos Matt Glowa and Nathan Hudema got 10-minute misconducts, and so did Tanner Clark, and Cole McCaig of Flin Flon. Meanwhile, John Lawrence of the Broncos got two minutes for cross-checking and five minutes for fighting, and Konrad Litke of the Bombers, two minutes for instigating, five minutes for fighting and a 10-minute misconduct.
A second Flin Flon goal had the same result. Less than a minute after the point at the 11-minute mark, Humboldt's Adam Antkowiak and Flin Flon's James McNulty dropped gloves. Antkowiak got two minutes for instigating, five for fighting, and a 10-minute misconduct, while McNulty got simply five for fighting.
In the third, the Broncos seemed to regroup. Just 55 seconds in, Andrew Herle scored the tying goal, assisted by Andrew Johnston.
Flin Flon scored again at 6:14, on a power play resulting from a checking from behind penalty to Humboldt's Hudema - to make it a 3-2 game, but Humboldt's Johnston managed to get a goal at 12:18, assisted by Cody Pettapiece and Sproule, to tie it up.
A five-minute overtime period ended without scoring, and the game went into a shootout.
Though Humboldt shot first, none of their three shooters - Johnston, Ryan Marshall or Sproule - was able to crack Bomber goalie Devin Buffalo's defence.
Two of Flin Flon's shooters - Riley Storzuk and Dillan McCombie - were unable to get by Bronco goaltender Deven Dubyk. However, their last, Kyle Olyniuk, did, giving the Bombers a 4-3 shoot-out victory.
Humboldt was zero for six on the power play, while the Bombers were one for five, but the Broncos doubled the Bombers' shots on goal, 53 to 27 over four periods and the shootout.
Johnston was the only Bronco to be named among the game's three stars.
