The Richardson Pioneer Weyburn Red Wings hit the road tonight to take on the Battlefords North Stars in Game 3 of the SJHL playoff quarterfinals. The Red Wings split the home series with a Game 1 win 4-3 at Crescent Point Place last Friday, and then a Game 2 loss 5-2, evening up the series 1-1. As the venue switches and the Red Wings travel north to the Access Communications Centre in North Battleford, the excitement continues to build in this tightly contested first round matchup. Jaxson Ruthven, forward for the Red Wings, states there's fun to be had in the challenge.
"It'll be fun, it's always a challenge playing in a different barn, but I think we're prepared and we've taken care of ourselves enough to have success up here so it's really exciting."
The Red Wings split the road series against the Battlefords North Stars in the regular season, winning 5-4 in a shootout on December 6th, and then falling 9-3 on December 7th. With the possibility of going up 2-1 in the series tonight, the Red Wings will need to be physically and mentally prepared for a tough matchup, as Josh Karman, defenseman for the Red Wings explains, it's all about preparation and taking things one day at a time.
"Obviously it would be awesome, (going up 2-1) is what we all want but I think we've done all we can to give ourselves our best chance of winning tonight, so we'll just have to see. We're just going to take it a game at a time and see what we can do." Ruthven confirms that mindset, "There's lots of work we got to do, and we got to show up every night and play our game. I think if we can do that, things will work out for us."
The puck drops at 7:30 p.m. tonight. Catch all the Game 3 action with Dylan Fiessel and John Perette on Great Plains Ford Red Wing Radio, Country 106.7, starting at 7:15 p.m. with the pre-game show.