The season came to an early end for the Cold Lake Ice last week, as the Wainwright Bisons took the playoff series 4-0.
“Obviously you're disappointed anytime you lose, but with the effort we put in it's a little easier to take then not showing up,” said Cold Lake Ice head coach Scott Hood. “(The team) played well for 60 minutes, they didn't give up. They played right until the final buzzer and that's all you can ask of your team. I'm proud of the guys.”
Down 2-0 in their second playoff series, the Ice were back at home on Wednesday and Friday for Games 3 and 4 versus the Bisons.
Starting out on Wednesday, the Bisons took the first lead of the game getting on the scoreboard with only 22 seconds left in the first period.
Just over six minutes into the second frame, Ice forward Ryan Evans found the back of the net to tie the game at one apiece. Not even three minutes later, Curtis Witney followed suit. His 11th point in eight playoff games, Witney fired in a pass from Mike Harbich to give Cold Lake a 2-1 lead.
Unable to hold off the Bisons, two goals from the visitors in the final seven minutes of the period and the Ice found themselves trailing 3-2 heading into the final period. With neither team managing to put a scoring play together in the third, the Bisons won 3-2 to lead the series 3-0.
Back in Cold Lake for Game 4 on Friday night, it was the Bisons who got the first goal of the game once again with six minutes left in the first.
Taking advantage of the power play, Christian Nypower notched his fifth goal of the playoffs to tie the score 1-1.
Four minutes into the final frame, Tyler Schubada gave the Bisons back their lead. It wasn't long before Taylor Anshelm evened up the score again for the Ice. Nine minutes to go in the game, Wainwright managed to sneak the puck past Ice netminder Cody Janzen to take a one-goal lead.
While the penalties continued to add up, despite their best efforts Cold Lake couldn't muster a comeback. The final score was 3-2 for the Bisons.
“It was a really hard fought series. We played good for those last three games, making them all one goal loses. Those are hard to swallow, but the boys played well night in and night out,” said Harbich.
The loss ended the 2015/'16 season for the Cold Lake Ice. The Ice went 19-13-4 in a regular season, ending in fourth spot moving into the playoffs. After taking their first playoff series 5-1, the Ice finished with eight points in the second season to take fourth place in the NEAJBHL
“We battled hard, we fought through adversity all year...We struggled out of the gate at the start of the year,” said Hood. “We started out with 13, 14, 15 guys and now we had 18 guys every game and guys wanted to come. Guys were finding excuses to get here, that's the difference.”
Harbich added, “Basically, at one point we were sitting in eighth spot and to finish in fourth is an accomplishment in itself. We were battling adversity the whole year with a new coaching staff and a lot of new players, so we definitely worked hard and came back good.”
With another season in the books, after a short break the Cold Lake Ice will be looking ahead to next season with Hood hoping to host a training camp in April.
“We're going to take a week off and start preparing for next year. I got hired late in June of last year and didn't really know what I was getting into, but now I've gone a full year and am looking forward to continue on and keep building what we're building here.”
