This week, the Thursday Thunder Player of the Week for the Airdrie Techmation Thunder is 17-year-old Ryder Terpstra.
Terpstra, from Airdrie, is currently in High School at W.H. Croxford. He grew up playing hockey within Airdrie with teams like Airdrie Lightning U18 AA and Airdrie-Bow Valley Havoc U16 AA.
Last Friday, the Thunder hosted their perennial rivals, the Red Deer Vipers. Red Deer has also struggled this season and went into the weekend with just four wins in 13 games. As has been the case in many games this season, penalty problems did the Thunder in as all five Vipers goals came with the man advantage in a 5 - 4 win. Terpstra got his third goal of the year during the game, bringing his point total to four on the year in 14 games played.
"Terpstra is contributing with some scoring and growing as a 17-year-old player and is adapting to junior hockey well," stated Thunder Head Coach Randy Buckle.
A trip to High River for a game against the High River Brewing Co. Flyers was on the Thunder's agenda last Saturday. Although they didn't take as many penalties as the previous night, the Thunder did take enough to give the Flyers five powerplay chances from which they scored twice and went on to a 4 - 2 win.
While the Thunder have a record of 3-10-1, Terpstra does believe the team is starting to come together.
"We've been starting to figure it out, coming together as a team and playing how we should be. "
Terpstra is happy with how he has been playing so far as well.
"I feel like I've done pretty good. I'll keep progressing and moving forward throughout the year."
When asked about plans for the next hockey season, Terpstra said he is uncertain as of right now and is waiting to see what the future holds.
The Thunder play just a single game next weekend. On Friday night they'll entertain the Cannex Cochrane Generals at 8:00 pm at the Ron Ebbesen Arena. Cochrane is in second place in the South Division with a record of 10-2-1 and trails Okotoks by three points, The Generals have a game in hand.
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