Lucas Punkari
Despite being unable to get one last exhibition game in against the Kenora Thistles, Fort Frances Thunderhawks’ head coach Larry Beck feels his squad still will be in good shape heading into the 2011 Allan Cup there next week after two days of practice this coming weekend.
“I still would have liked to have had one more game in before we left [for Kenora] but it just didn’t work out with guys trying to get the time off for the game [on March 26], especially since players will be taking time off next week,” Beck noted.
“On Saturday and Sunday, we’ll be going over a few things that we need to work on before we go to Kenora, along with what to expect once we get there,” he explained.
The Thunderhawks’ two final practices before making the trek to Kenora will be held Saturday from 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. and again Sunday from 1:15-2:45 p.m. at the Ice For Kids Arena.
Then after arriving in Kenora later Sunday, the T’hawks will have another practice Monday morning before opening round-robin play against the South East Prairie Thunder of Manitoba at 2 p.m. at the Kenora Recreation Centre.
Their final round-robin game goes Tuesday at 2 versus the Clarenville Caribous of Newfoundland.
“We don’t know a great deal about them, but we’re expecting to face some good competition there,” Beck remarked.
“One of the things we’ll be working on is making sure that we react to the type of style that they’ll bring, so that we’ll be more flexible in adapting to whatever another team will throw at us,” he reasoned.
The other pool at the Allan Cup also will get underway Monday, with the host Thistles taking on the winner of the southern Ontario-based Major Hockey League championship series between the Norwood Vipers and Dundas Real McCoys (Dundas led the best-of-seven series 3-2 going into Game 6 last night).
Rounding out the teams is the Bentley Generals of Alberta, who have been to the championship game for the last three years and took home the 2009 Allan Cup trophy.
Looking at his team, Beck enjoys the depth that is available on his roster, especially in goal as former St. Scholastica All-American Steve Bounds will be coming in from Alberta to join the T’hawks.
“With him and our two regular netminders [Chris Medicine and Jason Flatt], we’re going to be really deep with some really strong players in between the pipes,” Beck noted.
“We’ll see how things pan out, but at this point I would expect that Medicine would get the nod for the first round-robin game, and then we’ll go with whoever is the hottest guy for the rest of the way,” he explained.
Beck also thinks his team’s
skaters also will be strong at both ends of the ice, especially on the defensive side of things.
“We’re seven men deep on the back end, with a very mobile defence that has good size and can move the puck up well, which is a luxury to have in this day and age,” he remarked.
“There’s going to be a lot of hockey in a short period of time next week, so having four deep lines of forwards is going to be a big help,” he stressed.
“After we see what we have at the practices, we’ll hope to have two scoring lines, a checking line that we can put against the other team’s top lines, and an energy line which should give us a nice balance.”
Although the T’hawks would like to start off the round-robin with a victory, they know all six teams advance to the playoff round, which gets underway next Thursday afternoon with the quarter-finals.
“If we win our opener against the Thunder, it’ll be a beautiful thing. But if we don’t, that’s fine,” Beck reasoned.
“We’d rather go 0-2 in the round-robin and win our first playoff game than to go 2-0 and get knocked out right away because everything will really start when we get to the elimination round,” he stressed.
The Allan Cup final is slated for Saturday, April 16 at 3 p.m., which will be broadcast nationally on TSN.
