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Game three tonight, Stars look for stranglehold

Apr 18, 2017 | 10:00 AM

The Battlefords North Stars will be looking to take a commanding lead in the Canalta Cup final when game three of the best-of-seven series resumes tonight in Flin Flon.

The Stars were impressive over the weekend, taking the first two games of the SJHL final at the Civic Centre, 3-0 on Friday night and 5-1 Saturday night.

Battlefords has been on an amazing playoff run, winning 10 consecutive games. However, as the series switches to the Whitney Forum in Flin Flon, head coach Nate Bedford knows it will be a raucous atmosphere.

“It’s a tough building to play in for sure,” said Bedford. “Let’s go in and treat it one game at a time and have some fun with it. If we’re successful in the first game there [in Flin Flon] great, but if not we’ll battle back.”

Flin Flon had one of the best home records during the regular season with a 23-3-2-2 mark, but just as impressive was the North Stars road record during the regular season, at 24-5-0-0 in 29 road games.

Taryn Kotchorek will get the start in goal for the North Stars tonight, Bedford confirmed on Tuesday morning.

The 19-year-old North Battleford product has a perfect 7-0 record during the playoffs with a stingy goals against average of 2.00 and a save percentage of .918 during the playoff run. Kotchorek was also named this week’s SaskTel SJHL goaltender of the week after posting a shutout in game one of the series on Friday night.

Forward Troy Gerein will be serving the second game of his two game suspension tonight as a result of his hit on Bombers forward Nate Hooper in the second period of game one.

Tonight’s game is set for 6:30 p.m. and CJNB/CJNS has the action for you starting with the Ultra Print pre-game show with Nathan Kanter at 6:15 p.m.

 

roger.white@jpbg.ca

On twitter: @battlefordsNow