A huge boost to the Swift Current Home Hardware Legionnaires as veteran goalie Berney Weston has returned to the U18 AAA club.
Weston got a win for them in the Battlefords after getting sent down from the WHL's Swift Current Broncos. He stopped 25 of 26 shots for the victory in his first game back.
"You can just feel the confidence level in the group when somebody like that walks back in the dressing room or on the ice for you," said Legionnaires head coach Todd Hornung. "You can feel it during the game. You have a little breakdown and you look back and he's back there just gives you that confidence for not only the staff, but our players as well. He's a big leader in our dressing room, he's vocal. He keeps things on the right track. We're excited to have him, however long that'll be. We'll see, but I mean every day we have him he's a bonus to our team."
Weston went 16-7 with a 2.85 goals against average and 0.919 save percentage for the Legionnaires last season.
"I think he's just trying to get better every day," Hornung said. "He's still got the opportunity to practice with the Broncos on a kind of a regular basis and face their shooters and develop against them as well. But I don't think he sees this as a downgrade at all, he's always a guy that challenges himself. He's always trying to be the best player on the ice day in and day out. I think Bernie is the guy who just looks kind of at the positives and he's just here to round out his game and develop the most he can. Someday it's going to come. He's going to be another level and he's going to excel."
Weston will be on a tandem with Moose Jaw Warriors draft pick Cade Mitchell. Hornung is confident the veteran will provide some excellent mentorship to their young goalie.
"They've only practiced a few times together right now," Hornung said. "You can see that he leans on him for a little bit of advice and it's somebody he can compete with on a daily basis to challenge himself some more. I think we're pretty lucky to have the two we have, and Cade played amazing for us as well so far this year."
Mitchell is 4-0 with a 2.95 goals against average and 0.918 save percentage.
Weston joins a Swift Current team that riding a five-game winning streak and has only lost once all season.
"I think it's starting to come," Hornung said. "I think we've been working pretty hard in our systems and working hard on getting the guys to buy into a certain way we play. We're happy always to get the two points. Still some things we feel as a staff we need to work on, but we're happy with the results we're getting."
The Legionnaires visit the Notre Dame Hounds on Saturday. They're then off for the next week as a league leading five players from their roster will participate in the WHL Cup.