When the Airdrie Xtreme plays on home ice for the first time in nearly a month, they’ll be doing it after a less than stellar tournament performance in Medicine Hat last weekend.
The Bantam AAA team went 2W-2L-1T at the Medicine Hat invitational, Nov. 18-21.
The 16-team tournament was divided into four divisions and was held in a round robin format, with Airdrie earning wins over Cloverdale from Surrey, B.C. and San Jose, Calif., a tie with the Winnipeg Hawks and losses to Spruce Grove and Pursuit of Excellence from Kelowna, B.C.
“We ended up .500, but that doesn’t bring the hardware home,” said Xtreme head coach Terry Keogh.
Airdrie’s tournament fate was sealed in its first game, a 7-6 loss to Spruce Grove on Nov. 18.
“We played well, but just had defensive mistakes moving the puck that Spruce Grove capitalized on,” Keogh said. “We deserved to win that game, so physiologically that was a big blow to our team.”
Airdrie dropped its second consecutive game, a 5-1 loss to the Pursuit of Excellence, Nov. 19, but recovered in its second game of the day by tying the Winnipeg Hawks 4-4.
“With the exception of (forward) Colby Chartier, everybody was going through the motions and hadn’t recovered from the previous loss,” Keogh said. “Chartier came to play all five games and started putting up some good points, which is what we’ve needed from him. And it was a lot better game (against Winnipeg), as we were re-focused.”
The Xtreme did salvage something from the weekend as the team won its final two games, 5-0 over San Jose and 9-4 over Cloverdale.
“It was too little, too late, unfortunately,” Keogh said. “But we’ve got league games coming up in the next week, so we made a few changes to create some more offence. We used it as some time to warm up and get ready for the league this week.”
Airdrie will travel to Red Deer to face the Rebels White on Nov. 26, before hosting the Calgary Northstars in Airdrie on Nov. 28. Game time is 1 p.m. at the Ron Ebbesen Arena.
