The La Ronge Ice Wolves were all over Nipawin's Gage Roberts in the Nipawin Hawks net during SJHL action on Wednesday. (Clark Stork/northeastNOW Staff)

By Clark Stork

Streak snapped

Nipawin Hawks winning streak snapped in loss to La Ronge

Feb 27, 2025 | 8:23 AM

The Hawks four game winning streak was busted Wednesday with a 5-2 loss to the La Ronge Ice Wolves in Nipawin.

With the Hawks looking to play spoiler in the Ice Wolves’ playoff hopes, and La Ronge trying to climb closer to the final postseason birth, the visitors scored twice in the first, two more times in the second and cruised to a 5-2 win. Nipawin head coach Tad Kozun said his team just didn’t have anything left after a fantastic stretch over the last couple weeks.

“I thought we actually got off to a good start, outshot them, maybe thought it was going to be easy tonight the way we started and the way we have been playing, just too many turnovers that led to their offence. We gave them everything they got tonight, giving up three on ones and back door tap ins, it just wasn’t our night,” Kozun admitted.

La Ronge opened the scoring in the first; the Ice Wolves were rewarded a second goal late in the first that appeared to hit the post and go nowhere near the goal line but was allowed giving the Ice Wolves a 2-0 lead after the first period.

The Ice Wolves added another going ahead 3-0 before Ashton Tait scored a powerplay goal in the second cutting the lead to 3-1. La Ronge restored the three goal difference in the second and never let Nipawin back in the game.

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Tait scored again for the Hawks, again on the powerplay; he has nine goals on the campaign.

Gage Roberts made 31 stops in the loss.

Nipawin will host the Kindersley Klippers Friday at the Centennial Arena. Kozun said the loss to La Ronge was a refresher for their young group that has played great lately winning six of their last 10 games.

“The biggest thing is you can’t ride too high and maybe that was part of it, we were riding too high. It puts us back down to where we need to be and back to work tomorrow and looking forward to getting back on the ice Friday,” he said.

Nipawin has five games left. Kindersley travels to Nipawin Friday before going to La Ronge for back-to-back games against the Ice Wolves.

Faceoff Friday is 7 p.m.

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