Last season, the Prairie Hockey Academy lost 19-0 to the Northern Alberta Xtreme.

The opening weekend of the 2018-19 season in the Canadian Sport School Hockey League showed exactly how far PHA’s Elite 15 program has come in the past year, as they battled the Xtreme in a pair of tight games in Caronport.

PHA ended up falling 4-1 to Northern Alberta on Saturday and 6-5 on Sunday. Both games that the Cougars felt that they could have won.

"I told NAX's coach that they took those four points from us, we know that as a team," said PHA head coach Rodney MacPhee. "That's the top team in Western Canada last year and we should have beat them in both games."

PHA was just minutes away from closing out its first win in CSSHL history, but the Xtreme struck for two goals in the final 2:59 to snatch away the victory.

Kaiden Wedderburn tied the game at 5-5 with 2:59 to play and then Jack Parker scored the winner for NAX with just 14 seconds remaining in regulation.

"They're one of the top teams in the league, we definitely competed well with them, but we just gave up late, we've just got to keep pushing and learn to push through it," said PHA forward Kirk Mullen after Sunday's game.

PHA forward Caelan Fitzpatrick battles down the board against the Northern Alberta Xtreme on Sunday at the Barkman Arena. (Photo: Marc Smith)

On Saturday, PHA battle NAX tightly for three periods, but they couldn't break through for a goal until the third period, which wasn't enough.

Austin Reschny had the lone goal in the loss for the Cougars, while Joel Vollrath, Parker, Sam Popowich and Gannon Laroque scored for Northern Alberta in the win. Parker and Laroque had two points each.

Chase Coward stopped 18 shots in the loss for PHA.

After the close game on Saturday, PHA started slowly on Sunday morning, falling behind 2-0 in the first period on goals from Riley See and Popowich for the Xtreme.

The Cougars woke up in the second with Liam McInnis finding the back of the net just 5:27 into the frame. Codie Saunders answered right back for NAX with a power play goal only 59 seconds later.

The two sides traded goals for the rest of the period with Caelan Fitzpatrick making it a 3-2 game with 8:24 left in the second. Saunders scored his second power-play goal of the period 6:21 later and Easton Ediger cut the lead back down to one with 1:41 left in the second.

PHA came firing out of the gates in the third with Ethan Peters scoring 3:42 into the period to tie the game at 4-4 and then Mullen gave the Cougars the lead, scoring on the power play with 13:57 left to play.

"It was amazing to get that goal, it was nice to get the monkey off my back, so it felt great," said Mullen, who was selected by the Moose Jaw Warriors in the sixth round of the 2018 WHL Bantam Draft.

PHA forward Kirk Mullen is mobbed after scoring the go-ahead goal early in the third period on Sunday. (Photo: Marc Smith)

It wasn't meant to be for PHA however as the Xtreme showed great resiliency and battled back to tie the game and eventually win it on Palmer's second goal of the weekend.

Nathan Airey stopped 35 of 41 shots in Sunday's loss.

Despite coming out with two losses, MacPhee said the team has a lot that they can build on after these two games.

"It's detail stuff that we have to work on, but we'll be there," he said. "This should be momentum and confidence building for us moving forward."

The Elite 15 squad will return to the ice coming up this weekend when they travel to Penticton, B.C. for three games. They face the Pursuit of Excellence Academy on Friday, Yale Hockey Academy on Saturday, and West Van Academy on Sunday.

Midget Varsity Starts 2-0

The Prairie Hockey Academy's Midget Varsity team put together a strong start to the CSSHL season with a pair of wins in Alberta this weekend.

PHA skated to a 10-2 win over the Banff Hockey Academy on Saturday and then won 8-2 over the International Hockey Academy on Sunday in Calgary.

In Saturday's win, Noah Schindel had a hat trick and four points to lead the way for PHA, while Tanner Funk also scored three times in the win. Colton Aikens and Keagon Little had a goal and four points each, while Aden Saworski had three assists.

Ryley Gross turned away 25 shots for the victory in net.

On Sunday, Jaedon Little led the attack with a goal and four points, while Noah Wills had two goals and three points, and Keagon Little picked up a goal and three points.

Josh Warkentin started in goal for PHA and turned away 30 shots to pick up the win.

The Midget Varsity squad returns to the ice on Friday, Oct. 12 in Banff for four games in three days.