Joey Payeur
This was no dainty dozen.
A gutsy group of Rainy River Community College Voyageurs women’s hockey players—all 12 of them—weren’t afraid to mix it up with more well-stocked opponents during RRCC’s ninth-annual Can-Am Tournament at Bronco Arena over the weekend.
The result of the Voyageurs’ determination was a fourth-place finish in the seven-team field after going 2-2.
The Thunder Bay Midget ‘A’ Queens won the tournament with a 3-0 shutout of the Confederation College Thunderhawks (Thunder Bay), which had Devlin native Shelby Rea patrolling their blue-line.
“Stamina-wise, I think the team held up great,” said Voyageurs’ head coach Jeff Wickstrom, who coached his first games for RRCC since 2009 after being re-hired just a few weeks ago.
Among the 10 skaters on the Voyageurs’ roster are the ex-Muskie forward quartet of Shelby Tymkin, Shilo Beck, Hailey Clendenning, and Katie Sinclair, along with converted blueliner Liz Henderson.
“The defence had all new players that haven’t played that position a whole lot, if at all,” noted Wickstrom.
“It was really nice to see from Friday and ending on Sunday that they definitely improved each game.
“Taina Kaartinen, who was a forward with last year’s team, is back on defence for the first time and did great,” he added.
“Marissa Lindblad, who’s here all the way from California, has never played defence, either, and she was pretty much our best defenceman by the end of the weekend.”
The Voyageurs opened action Friday with a 4-0 loss to the Confederation College Thunderhawks, featuring Devlin native Shelby Rea on defence.
“We gave up two power-play goals and a third one on a delayed penalty,” recalled Wickstrom.
“Other than that, it was a pretty even game.”
The loss, combined with earlier results on Friday, led to the intriguing scenario where all the Thunder Bay teams were on the winners’ side of the bracket while all the American Collegiate Hockey Association teams battled it out on the consolation side.
The Voyageurs’ resilience showed in the first game on Saturday—a 3-1 win over the Minot State University Beavers (N.D.)
“We skated very well, and were outshooting and outplaying them, but their goalie played very well,” noted Wickstrom.
“Then they scored first and our team really could have been deflated.”
Enter Tymkin, who was chosen captain of the Voyageurs after serving the same role for the Muskie girls’ squad last season.
“Shelby was a standout,” lauded Wickstrom.
“I told them all they had to keep digging, that they were being too cute, and that they had to get shots on net and crash the net,” he noted.
“[And] that it was going to be an ugly goal to get them back into it.
“Shelby goes out and gets a hat trick against one of the many tough goalies we faced,” Wickstrom added.
“That’s the big thing I’ve noticed that’s different since the last time I coached is that the goaltending has improved quite a bit at this level,” he said.
The win moved the Voyageurs into the consolation final against the Northern Michigan University Wildcats (Marquette) on Sunday.
A scoreless battle after two periods led to an exciting third, with Micah Cabral lighting the lamp with 4:02 left in regulation time on a setup from Beck and Shay Perry making 12 saves to give RRCC the 1-0 win.
“We outshot them 35-17 and outplayed them, and finally ended up with the goal late in the third,” noted Wickstrom.
With the consolation crown in their back pocket, the Voyageurs took a good run at third place in their second game of the day against a solid Lakehead Thunderwolves’ team that hadn’t played since Saturday.
In another defensive duel, Tymkin looked to have RRCC in the driver’s seat when she tallied with 3:50 to go in the third for a 1-0 lead.
But Lakehead used its time-out to full effect, netting the equalizer with 1:02 left to force overtime.
“The girls were going crazy on the bench because we thought we had it, for sure,” Wickstrom recalled.
“But Lakehead called its time-out and I don’t know what their coach said to get them pumped up,” he added.
“But when they dropped the puck after, they came at us like they were very mad.”
In overtime, it was Wickstrom calling a time-out with 30 seconds left in the 10-minute extra period.
“I wanted to try and throw all our offence out there and get the winner,” he said.
But the plan backfired as a defensive lapse by the Voyageurs allowed Lakehead’s Hope Fullum to score the game-winner with 7.8 seconds on the clock.
“I should have played for the shootout because the way [Perry] was playing, she would have won it for us,” Wickstrom lamented.
“But I figured I might as well try things like this now so in the future when we play, we’ll know what works and what doesn’t work,” he reasoned.
RRCC begins its regular season this weekend when the defending ACHA Division II national champion Iowa State Cyclones visit Bronco Arena for a pair of match-ups on Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at noon.
