The Fort Frances Lakers now have a record of 2-2 so far this season after two sky-high-scoring wins against the Ironwood Lumberjacks this past weekend.
The Lakers toppled the Lumberjacks 16-0 on Friday night and 20-0 on Saturday. Lakers Head Coach and GM Luke Judson said games like that can be a blessing and a curse.
“That’s our goal all the time, to win a hockey game, no matter who we’re playing,” he said. “It’s tough to be in games like that this time of year. You’re trying to have good habits, teach the kids the right way to play. I think at some point in those games maybe that got away from us.”
The Lumberjacks fielded a roster of just 13 skaters and two goaltenders, which meant they were showing fatigue in the later stages of the game. They only had four defencemen listed on the roster for each game.
Those games are hard to coach and difficult to maintain proper systems at times.
“Everyone knows in games like that, every coach will tell their team, ‘Let’s not get bad habits, let’s make sure we’re playing the right way. Let’s try and work on our chemistry and work on our details,’” Judson said.
“But at the end of the day, it’s hard to do that in situations like that. I think there were some things we learned. There are some things we didn’t do so well, but you know at the same time, winning two games the way we did probably isn’t a huge positive that we’re celebrating. But at the same time, we tried to use it the best we could to develop our players and develop our team and develop our chemistry.”
The Lumberjacks seem to have struggled to draw players to their roster.
“Every team has its ups and downs in our league, and I’m hoping they’ll get some players in the short term to get themselves back where they’ve been in the past,” Judson said.
Judson said he sympathizes with the leadership trying to build a team for Ironwood.
“It’s been tough for everyone this year; they probably have their own challenges being in the States as well,” Judson added.
“Every year there are more teams, every year there’s more leagues, there’s a lot of competition. It wasn’t too long ago that we had 12 guys in practice a couple of weeks ago. We worked hard to get a full team of good junior hockey players here. At the end of the day, I see the challenge, and I think they’ll have their work in front of them getting more players. At the same time, our league is stronger with seven teams.”
This weekend the Lakers will take on the Kam River Walleye in a home-and-home series with the first game going at 7:15 p.m. at Ice for Kids Arena on Friday.
The Walleye have started their season 0-1-1-0, dropping a pair of games to the Red Lake Miners last weekend.
Kam River is fielding a full roster of 18 skaters, though, and should post a stiffer challenge than Ironwood.
“It’s going to be a challenge. Across the league, we’ve seen some really close games,” Judson said. “I think some surprises for some people about where some teams are at and what some of the scores have been. Obviously, we don’t want to scoreboard watch too much and worry about our own chemistry and problems and line combinations and work and systems that we have to do. But at the same time, just looking around the league, it looks like it’s anyone’s league right now, and we’ve got to take care of ourselves and make sure that we’re ready to go on Friday, no matter who it is.”
The Lakers will be honouring Orange Shirt Day this week, attending the local awareness walk and wearing custom Treaty #3 jerseys in partnership with Seven Generations Education Institute. The Lakers will also wear the jerseys as they take to the ice on Friday night, when they also mark the anniversary of the signing of Treaty #3 with the Saagajiwe Drummers, who will open the game with an honour song.
