Mustangs and Hawks Renewal Rivalry at the Palace
The 2019 portion of the 2019-20 SJHL Season, concludes this weekend for the Melfort Mustangs and Nipawin Hawks. The two Sher-Wood Division Rivals face off as they kick off a home and home to end the 2019 calendar year. The teams meet tonight in Melfort before heading to Nipawin for the rematch tomorrow night.
The Mustangs head into the weekend coming off disappointing losses in Weyburn and Estevan. Following a 3-2 loss to Weyburn on Friday, the Mustangs fell 3-1 to Estevan on Saturday. The pair of losses drops the Mustangs to 20-11-2-1 on the season, currently 4th place in the SJHL Standings. The Mustangs now trail the Yorkton Terriers for 3rd overall, with 3 games in hand on the Terriers. Offensively the Mustangs have used scoring by committee this year as the team now has 6 players all with 20 plus points. Kyle Bosch(29), Nolan Kadachuk(28) and Kenzie Arnold(28) lead the team on the score sheet. Between the pipes both Shawn Parkinson and Tanner Martin have been great this year. The two have combined for a 2.50 Goals Against Average and a .913 Save Percentage.
For the Nipawin Hawks, they’ve dropped 4 straight games and sit 17-15-2-0 on the season. They currently sit in 7th place overall with Notre Dame and Kindersley both just 2 points behind them in the standings. A few more losses for the Hawks and they could possibly fall outside of the playoff picture. Similar to Melfort, Nipawin has seen scoring in depth this year. Dawson McKenzie(30), Jake Tremblay(27) and Carson Erhardt(25) lead the Hawks in scoring.
| SJHL Standings | GP | W | L | OTL | SOL | PTS | |
| 1 | Battlefords North Stars | 37 | 29 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 60 |
| 2 | Flin Flon Bombers | 34 | 23 | 7 | 4 | 0 | 50 |
| 3 | Yorkton Terriers | 37 | 22 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 45 |
| 4 | Melfort Mustangs | 34 | 20 | 11 | 2 | 1 | 43 |
| 5 | La Ronge Ice Wolves | 37 | 19 | 14 | 2 | 2 | 42 |
| 6 | Humboldt Broncos | 36 | 16 | 15 | 3 | 2 | 37 |
| 7 | Nipawin Hawks | 34 | 17 | 15 | 2 | 0 | 36 |
| 8 | Notre Dame Hounds | 37 | 15 | 18 | 3 | 1 | 34 |
| 9 | Kindersley Klippers | 37 | 14 | 17 | 5 | 1 | 34 |
| 10 | Estevan Bruins | 32 | 13 | 16 | 2 | 1 | 29 |
| 11 | Melville Millionaires | 35 | 11 | 18 | 2 | 4 | 28 |
| 12 | Weyburn Red Wings | 34 | 13 | 20 | 0 | 1 | 27 |
Tonight’s game begins at 7:30pm from the Northern Lights Palace in Melfort. We have a guaranteed $3,000 50:50 jackpot thanks to Exceed Grain Marketing. We also have a puck toss at the first intermission and at the second intermission we are drawing the winning ticket for the $10,000 Recreation Lottery.
Photo Credit: Broad Leaf Media
