After losing five straight, the Kimberley Dynamiters needed a win badly and they got one on Sunday, Jan. 21, shutting out the Golden Rockets 4-0 at the Civic Centre.
“I thought it was a much deserved win,” said head coach, general manager Derek Stuart. “There were a couple of games in the past month here where I thought we deserved a better fate, Friday for example, I thought we should have won that one. Anyways, it was good to get the result tonight.”
The team had been dogged by a bad illness that, combined with some injuries, meant they weren’t playing at full strength for much of the new year thus far. They also made a few major trades and so with the illness behind them, some new talent acquired and a win under their belt, they can start working on a return to form.
“We still have a lot of work to do to get to where we were before Christmas, but we’re looking forward to tomorrow,” Stuart said following Sunday’s game. “I think it’s going to be our first practice of January where everyone is actually going to be at practice and not home in bed sick. We’re looking forward to turning things around here.”
In terms of trades, the Dynamiters acquired Liam Furlong right before the deadline and then Tyden Redlick from the Camrose Kodiaks of the AJHL for future considerations.
Redlick scored his first goal with the Dynamiters in Sunday’s win over Golden, and Stuart said he is already starting to fit in nicely.
The team then traded Luke Rothfos and Hayden Selin to Cambell River of the VIJHL for Riley Langille, who’s recently been in Serbia playing in the Tier 2 World Championships playing for Australia.
“It was a trade we think makes our team better, but unfortunately we knew going into that trade we weren’t going to get him until the 23rd,” Stuart said. “So it was a little bit tough to make that trade but at the same time he’s an elite player in the VIJHL and we expect him to be an elite player in our league too.”
Sunday’s win started with a nice goal from Carter Hensch, who popped the puck in the net following a nice passing play with Billy Kiray and Kade Leskosky.
Trey Stephenson tacked another one on in the first, hammering the puck into the top corner from the top of the circle.
Redlick’s goal early in the first made it 3-0 and Billy Kiray would add one more to the scoresheet for a dominant 4-0 finish.
Games against the Rockets tend to see a fair bit of scrappiness, and this one was no exception. The Rockets took eight penalties to the Nitros’ three, and captain Carson Cleland said the team has been continually working on playing mature hockey and staying out of the penalty box whenever possible.
“I really like to see the boys go out there and put up a good game,” Cleland said.
We’re starting to take the right steps forward, but when all of that scrappy stuff started going down we really didn’t stoop down to their level and get sucked into their stuff, it was nice to see.
“We had a little bit of penalty problems midway through the season and we’re starting to shift away from it so that’s good to see the boys not lose their tempers.”
This is Cleland’s third season with the Dynamiters and was unanimously selected as the team’s captain.
“It feels really good, it’s a super big honour that the rest of the boys thought that I’d do a good job for them this year,” he said.
“I’ve personally had the honour of knowing the last four or five captains and they’re all really good guys with really good character so that means a little bit more to me knowing that I’m in good company with those guys.”
He said that the team had set the goals of being first in their division and conference and third overall in the league heading into the break, which they achieved. He said they unfortunately let it slip a little bit in the first few weeks of January.
“We faced some adversity, we had the flu bug, a couple injuries, a couple trades going back and forth, but I’d rather get all that stuff out now, rather than first round of playoffs,” Cleland said. “I think as soon as we get all of our players back — we’ve still got that Riley kid coming, he was playing his World Juniors out there in Serbia, so I think as soon as he comes back he’ll really fill out our forward core.”
Cleland added he’s excited to get back on the ice Monday and start working at full pace after not being able to go hard with their full lineup for a practice in a while.
The Dynamiters will look for repeat results in their next game, which is also against Golden on Friday, Jan. 26, who they will play again on Saturday, Feb. 3 after a game in Columbia Valley on Feb. 2. Their next home game is on Friday, FEb. 9 when they welcome the Grand Forks Border Bruins.