The Midget Tier 1 Warriors in action this season at the Bert Hunt

After lighting the league on fire to start the season, the Moose Jaw Midget Tier 1 Warriors cooled off a bit over their last two league games, dropping both to end the month of November.

They were able to get back on track though over the weekend as they took a break from league play and headed to a tournament in Saskatoon.

“Up there we played very well and won three of our four games, the only game we lost was a one-goal game in overtime,” said head coach Curtis Banda.  “As of right now, our play is actually pretty good.  We're back to the hard work that we needed to get that long string of wins we had earlier.”

The Warriors are still looking good in the South Saskatchewan Minor Hockey League standings as they sit at 9-4-0 on the year and in fourth place, but it's not quite as good as their incredible run to start the season.

“We did have a pretty long stretch with quite a few games and we were pretty banged up, so the break gave a lot of bodies the ability to rest, so I'm hoping we come out on Wednesday and are able to put together a solid effort,” explained Banda.

The Warriors will host the Notre Dame Bantam Hounds, who are one point up on them in the standings with an 8-2-3 record to start the year.  The Hounds picked up a 5-2 win over the Regina Wild on Monday night in Wilcox.

The two teams are very similar in terms of stats as well with the Hounds scoring 67 goals and allowing 41 so far this season, while Moose Jaw has scored 65 and allowed 32 in the same amount of games.  Banda says they play a similar style of game, “They are an extremely fast team, they have some good talent, and I would say the biggest difference between what we've seen from them and what we know our boys can do is, we have a little more experience and a little more patience, so I think we'll need to exploit that to come away with the win.”

This is the first meeting of the season between the two teams.  Puck drops at 8:15pm at the Bert Hunt.