By Nathan Kanter

Broomball World Championships an uphill battle for Warriors

Nov 9, 2016 | 4:00 PM

The Saulteaux Warriors broomball team faced a number of obstacles the 2016 World Broomball Championships last week in Regina.

The week before the tournament, a few key players had to back out, some because of injury and some because of other commitments. Many of the players they took as replacements hadn’t played competitive broomball before. During the tournament they also faced injuries to key veteran players.

With a largely inexperienced roster, and one that was fairly depleted by the end, the result was only one win in the tournament. But, as Warriors goaltender Sean Fauchon made clear in a phone interview on Wednesday, it was still a great opportunity to partake in.

“Didn’t really turn out that way we wanted it to but overall it was still a great experience for everyone,” Fauchon said. “It is what it is and you can’t really change anything. It sucked that we ended up only going with one veteran line to start with and then taking on the injuries really hurt us.”

The tournament began well, with a 7-0 victory of Team Japan. But the second match against the Swiss resulted in a number of players getting hurt because of the physicality both teams brought. The Warriors ended up narrowly losing 1-0.

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With the injuries from that loss, it was tough to recover.

“From there, it just kind of spiraled out of control downhill,” Fauchon said. “We ended up [having] our six fresh [new] guys and only two veterans to carry on the rest of the games until some of the rest of the guys could try to heal up.”

In the end, the Warriors were relegated to the challenge cup and narrowly fell to team Japan in the bronze medal challenge cup match 3-2 in overtime. It was the same team they beat in the first match, a clear sign that the eight games in four days had taken a toll on the young team.

“Trying to play with eight [or] nine players and six of them have never played before, it gets tough,” Fauchon said. “It was a lot of broomball. Lots of bruises and bumps; lots of guys feeling the pain.”

The Warriors ended up allowing a heck of a lot of shots on Fauchon over the course of the tournament, and he said it was nice to get recognition from many of his opponents on his performance. Another standout moment for him was facing the Bruno Axemen, who used to have a great rivalry with the Warriors.

Fauchon has known some of the Axemen players for 20-plus years.

“Even before the game it was like, ‘It’s probably going to get out of hand Sean,’ and it was like, ‘I know,’” Fauchon joked. “I just said, ‘It is what it is, do what you’ve got to do.’ And it was good. We get competitive on the ice and as soon as we’re off the ice…I guess I would say comradery even though we have kind of a rivalry. You still get along after.”

Bruno made it all the way to the championship final but fell to the Ottawa Nationals in a close 2-1 game.

The Warriors had to fundraise in order to make the trip to Regina possible and Fauchon made it clear that they wouldn’t have been able to go without the support of some community businesses.

“Some local sponsors really stepped up and helped us out,” he said. “[Battlefords Agency Tribal Chiefs] helped us out immensely. Billy’s Plumbing and Heating, Saulteaux First Nations, Silvester Glass, Sunchild Law, Battlefords Animal Hospital, Anderson Pump House, they all stepped up and helped with covering the rest of the cost.”

The Warriors hope to have a healthy lineup for provincials in March 2017.

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