Two players dropped the gloves for a spirited fight in Friday's SJHL action. (Clark Stork/northeastNOW Staff)

By Clark Stork

Friday Night Lights

Hawks blanked by Humboldt, turn focus to Mustangs

Feb 19, 2022 | 12:03 PM

The weekend didn’t start well for the Nipawin Hawks on Friday night as they were shutout 6-0 by the Humboldt Broncos on home ice Friday night.

The Hawks had a chance to jump out to the lead early in the game with a pair of powerplays, but the Broncos killed those off, scored shortly thereafter and cruised to Rayce Ramsay’s fourth shutout of the season in goal for the Broncos. Hawks head coach Tad Kozun was disappointed with his team following the loss, especially since the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) club has shown progress over the last 10 days.

“It wasn’t good,” Kozun said. “Coming off three games where I thought we played pretty well starting with the 2-1 loss to Humboldt then beating Yorkton and getting a win in Flin Flon and then we come out just flat.”

Jerzy Orchard opened the scoring in the first period, the former Western Hockey League veteran led the way with a hat trick for the Broncos. Lucas Ceccarelli scored twice while SJHL points leader Connor McGrath capped the onslaught. Kozun said the game got away early from his club.

“It’s hard to say what happened and why we weren’t ready to go, but we weren’t ready to go from puck drop tonight and it was unacceptable,” he lamented.

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Chase Hamm suffered the loss in goal for Nipawin making 30 stops. Ramsay was only called upon 22 times to secure the shutout and his SJHL leading 36^th victory.

The Hawks will host the Melfort Mustangs Saturday to cap the team’s parent-billet weekend in Nipawin. Kozun said with a quick turnaround the team can still cap a solid week with a rebound performance against their archrivals.

“It’s parent-billet weekend, there’s a lot of people in town, to have an effort like that wasn’t great but luckily we can come back tomorrow, regroup, and if we can respond with a passionate game against the Mustangs, we win two of three on the week that pitted us against three of the SJHL’s top teams,” Kozun said.

Faceoff at the Centennial Arena is at 7:30 p.m.

The Hawks will be auctioning their third jerseys after the game, those were unveiled Friday.

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clark.stork@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @ClarkStork