The Cougars hosted Calgary-based Edge School for Athletes for a pair of Canadian Sport School Hockey League games this past weekend at Barkman Arena in Caronport, taking a 5-4 overtime win in their opener Saturday, Oct. 5 before falling 5-2 in the rematch the following morning.
“Edge is a good team, they’re well coached, they work hard,” said Cougars head coach Micah Abbott. “Today was their night to win, last night was ours. So we’ll learn our lesson, if you don’t come to work you’re not going to win too many games. But we have a lot of character in that room, they’ll bounce back and will be ready to come back next week.”
The opening contest was pretty much as back-and-forth as a hockey game can be.
Carter Wickenheiser gave the Cougars a 1-0 lead in the first period, only to see Edge score four straight in the second, including three goals in the first five minutes of the period.
PHA wouldn’t go easily, though, as McKale Paul and Jed Maggarrell scored in the first five of the third before Daxton Lang tied the game with 1:50 to play.
That set the stage for McLaren Paulsen to come through as the overtime hero as he scored with 2:49 left in overtime to secure the win.
“It was a lot of character, a lot of heart,” Abbott said. “We let them get up on us in the second period there, they came at us hard and got four quick ones but we took it to them in the third period and managed to get a couple in and McLaren scored a nice one in overtime.”
Bodee Weiss picked up the win and was outstanding in goal, turning aside 47 shots including 21 in the second period alone. The Cougars had 23 total.
There would be no comeback the following morning, as Tate Schofer’s power-play goal would be all the offence PHA could muster until late in the third period. By that time, Edge had a 5-1 lead, with Magarrell scoring a consolation marker with 4:14 to play.
Dazza Mitchell made 35 saves in the Cougars goal.
“It’s a tough league and a tough division,” Abbott said. “There’s not much that separates the top 10 teams in this league other than work and who wants it more and who wins the one-on-one battles and who is going to sit back and watch the other team. So we’ll build on this weekend and come out better next time.”
Prairie Hockey Academy is now 4-1-1-0 on the season and sit in second place in the CSSHL Elite 15 division.
