By Stephen Dafoe
Morinville – A pair of weekend wins gave the Morinville Jets their seventh and eighth consecutive wins Jan. 25 and 27. The club started the weekend with an 8-2 road victory over the Leduc Riggers and capped it with a 10-0 shut out victory over the visiting Stony Plain Flyers.
With a 21-11-0 record, a third place standing in the West Division, and six games left in the regular season, making the playoffs is a certainty; sitting out round one of those playoffs like last year is a little less certain.
Some challenges ahead
The weekend put the Jets against two of the weakest teams in the league: the basement-dwelling Flyers in the West, and the sixth-ranked Riggers in the East. After a long line of injuries, the Jets got their roster back on the ice just in time to lose both goalies: Mike Brown to a pulled groin, Brad Miller to a concussion during Friday night’s game. Although Midget AA backstop Austin Witter did well in net over the weekend, five of the Jets’ six remaining contests are against clubs with as good or better season records than the Jets. . Brown is due back on the ice Friday night; Miller is off for two weeks.
The Jets take on the St. Albert Merchants on the road Friday night for an 8 p.m. game at the Akinsdale Arena, then travel to the Londonderry Arena to take on the Beverly Warriors Sunday night. The club returns to home ice Feb. 5 for a Tuesday night game against the Sherwood Park Knights. Game time is 8:30 p.m. at the Ray McDonald Sports Centre.
