By Nathan Kanter

After long wait, AAA Sharks set for home opener

Oct 28, 2016 | 6:50 AM

While many teams have played six games already this season – and some teams seven – the AAA Sharks have played just three. They also haven’t had a home game despite the regular season opening over four weeks ago.

This weekend that will all change, as the Sharks are finally set for their home debut on Saturday.

So far through three games the results haven’t been pretty with three losses, but head coach Gary Berggren still believes he’s seeing improvement every day.

“Absolutely,” Berggren said after practice on Thursday night at Battleford Arena. “Even in practice we’re getting better every day. Power play is getting better. Penalty kill is getting better.”

Second-year Sharks forward Dakota Peterson agreed with coach Berggren and admitted the beginning of the year has been a bit rocky.

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“We’re still learning,” she said. “We’re a really young team so we’re going to get better.

“We just kind of take it day by day. Come to the rink prepared. Be ready to do what you’ve got to do.”

Against the Prince Albert Northern Bears a week and a half ago, the Sharks fell 5-2.

The Art Hauser Centre in P.A. is a bigger ice surface, which Berggren said doesn’t suit his club particularly well.

“We’re built to play in this rink, which is a lot smaller,” Berggren said. “Going to the big ice in PA it is tougher for our club but we just try and take away as much time and space as we can and we do play aggressively. I think that’s part of our issue – is we’re not as aggressive as we can play or as we’d like to play. I’m hoping this weekend at our rink, our home rink, that we will come out and be aggressive.”

Berggren added the Sharks fell behind quickly against the Northern Bears because of some bad bounces.

First, opposing player Kate Ball batted the puck out of the air twice for the opening goal and then they added two more in the opening frame off of deflected pucks.

“Tough breaks there and then you’re down 3-1,” Berggren said. “We are showing a little bit of our youth. They’ve got some pretty good players. We skated with them pretty good but we just came up short.

P.A. is third in the league in goals with 26 in just six games, and they’ve won three in a row.

But the focus switched a while ago from P.A. to Notre Dame, who the Sharks will host twice this weekend.

“They’re hard working. They’re aggressive,” Berggren said. “They have a good goalie and they play systems really well – they’re well coached so we have to match that.”

Both Berggren and Peterson – and the whole team – are looking forward to their first home games of the season.

It’s a perfect opportunity to get the first win of the season.

“We’re hyped,” Peterson said. “There’s going to be lots of cheering from our home fans so it’s going to put a lot of gas in the tank for the girls.”

“We’re ready to go,” Berggren added. “We want to win for our fans for sure and for us as well.”

The first game of the weekend is Saturday evening at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday’s game is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Both games will be played at Battleford Arena.

Nathan Kanter is battlefordsNOW’s sports reporter and voice of the Battlefords North Stars. He can be reached at Nathan.Kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11.