The Fort Frances Lakers kicked off the 2025-26 Superior International Junior Hockey League season with two wins over the weekend.
Head Coach and GM Luke Judson said he was pleased with the weekend following game two, a 2-1 shootout victory over the Dryden GM Ice Dogs.
“It’s a great start,” he said.
“We just talked about how hard it’s going to be to keep this going. Ultimately sometimes things aren’t going to be easy and we have to find ways to make things happen. Tonight, we did so it’s a good lesson on how we need to play, how we need to persevere. I’m proud of them.”
The Lakers opened the season with a bang as they exploded for seven goals to beat the Red Lake Miners 7-1 as goaltender Brady Cates won in his Jr A debut stopping 25 of 26 Miners shots.
The game was a penalty filled affair that saw 19 infractions called between both sides, including a game misconduct per team. Two of the Lakers goals came on the powerplay as did the Miners’ loan tally.
Ronny Bender opened the season scoring for the Lakers at 4:25 of the first period with assists from Pierce Gouin and Austin Cooper. Cooper would score a goal of his own later in the period followed by a tally by Fort Frances local Teagan Wrolstad to make it a 3-0 first period.
Tie Schumacher scored for the Lakers in the middle frame, while Miner Reid White would get Red Lake on the board on the power play.
The Lakers got that goal back early in the third when Gouin scored a goal at the 23 second mark. Nickolas Fagnilli scored just over a minute later and Carter Peters wrapped up the scoring for the Lakers.
Miners starter Ron Cailo took the loss in net, giving up six goals on 28 shots. Zach Johnson gave up one goal on nine shots in relief following the Fagnilli goal.
Saturday night was a different affair.
With slightly fewer penalties, nine, vs the previous night’s 19, saw more five on five play.
The first period was tightly contested and saw each team put 13 shots on net but Dryden’s Mavric Welk and Lakers netminder Nolan Koethler were more than up to the task.
Dryden’s first goal of the contest came on the power play while Lakers forward Carter Deschamps was in the box on an ill-advised slashing penalty. The shots remained knotted after the second with each team having 12 shots on goal.
Deschamps would redeem himself by tying the game with less than five minutes remaining with assists from Teagan Wrolstad and Zak Green.
A late high stick drawing blood would give the Lakers a power play for the lion’s share of five minute overtime period where they outshot the Ice Dogs 6-3 but both goalies once again stood tall leading to a shootout.
Throughout the game, digs at goaltenders after the whistle were a problem, which came to a head near the end of the overtime period when Lakers Forward Austin Cooper came to Koethler’s aid and took a penalty for cross checking. No penalty was assessed on the Ice Dogs, angering Judson, who was ejected from the game for arguing with the officials over the call.
The Lakers would get the last laugh in the shootout though.
After Teagan Wrolstad missed on the Lakers first shot, the Ice Dogs could only find metal, two shots off the post followed by Pierce Gouin and Zak Green both scoring on Welk gave the Lakers a 2-0 win in the shootout for a 2-1 in the standings.
After the game Koethler said he knows his teammates have his back.
“I know my D-men got it for me,” he said.
“I just don’t worry about it too much. You can’t let that stuff bug you or it will eat at you the whole game.”
After the game, Deschamps said he tried to keep the attitude positive on the bench.
“I think the main thing was to just keep the boys up after that happened,” he said.
“Once I scored it pumped the boys up even more and we kept going. It brought some energy back to the team and led us to the win.”
Deschamps gave credit to the wingers for feeding him the puck on the goal.
“It was all my wingers, and the d-man who gave it to them, they passed it to each other and I just went to the net and they gave it to me,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be able to do it without them.”
Judson praised Deschamps for his work on the team following the game.
“Chomps has been kind of Mr. Everything for us for two years, he plays power play, penalty kill, and is one of our top guys five on five,” he said.
“So he sets a great example with his work ethic, and you know, sometimes with players like that, their emotions sometimes get the best of them. He’s come a long way in that regard, but generally, he makes up for it with plays like that.”
The Lakers will play Red Lake again on Friday night at Ice For Kids Arena at 7:15 p.m. before a Saturday contest on the road against reigning SIJHL champs the Kam River Walleye at Norwest Arena in Oliver Paipoonge.
