Lucas Punkari
The 2011 SIJHL post-season has ended earlier than the Fort Frances Lakers would have liked.
The squad fell 4-1 in Dryden last night, allowing the Ice Dogs the capture the best-of-seven semi-final series in six games.
After a scoreless opening 20 minutes, the Ice Dogs scored twice in the second period to grab a 2-0 lead.
They extended their lead even further in the third as Dwight Lee lit the lamp twice with a power-play and a short-handed marker, respectively.
“It’s tough to say this but we just didn’t show up for the first 50 minutes,” lamented Lakers’ head coach Wayne Strachan.
“The first period was back and forth, but in the second we came out flat and gave them two goals as a result of not picking up guys around the net,” he noted.
“And in the third, we dug ourselves an even bigger hole with a bad penalty and a very bad turnover on the power play.”
The rest of the third period would see the Lakers throw everything but the kitchen sink at Ice Dogs’ goalie Ian Perrier.
They fired 26 shots in the period, but only Jace Baldwin found the back of the net as the Lakers saw their season come to an end.
Despite a 20-win turnaround from last season, and also making the SIJHL semi-finals for the third-straight year (twice as the Lakers and before that as the former Jr. Sabres), Strachan feels a mix of emotions as his franchise missed out on the league final yet again.
“At the start of the year, our goal was to finish in the top three,” Strachan said.
“But I didn’t foresee us having 20 more wins than last year, so our hats go off to the players for their hard work to accomplish that,” he remarked.
“Obviously, though, we had bigger sights in the playoffs in getting to the finals. And if we made it there, I truly thought, and the team believed, that we could have some success and go further.
“But instead, we’re all sitting here today just scratching our heads and wondering what happened,” Strachan added.
Instead, it’s the Ice Dogs who are in the SIJHL final for the second-straight season, where they will square off against the regular-season champion Wisconsin Wilderness for the Bill Salonen Cup.
“It’s a good opportunity for the few guys that were a part of last year’s team to get another kick at the championship,” said Ice Dogs’ head coach Clint Mylymok, whose team lost to the then Fort William North Stars in last season’s final.
“There’s still a sour taste in a couple of the guys’ mouths after losing last season, and you don’t get the opportunity very often to have a chance to win a title at any level, so to have a second chance is pretty exciting,” Mylymok reasoned.
The SIJHL has not yet announced when the best-of-seven series will begin, but Mylymok said the tentative schedule sees the Ice Dogs travelling to Spooner for Game 1 on Sunday (April 3).
