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Warriors win OT thriller in 13U AA exhibition opener

Gibbs caps five-point game with overtime winner as Moose Jaw takes 5-4 victory over Swift Current
You won’t find a much more entertaining start to the hockey season than what the Moose Jaw Warriors and Swift Current Broncos put together in Sask AA Hockey League 13U action on Sunday afternoon.

Ryan Gibbs scored his third goal and fifth point of the game with 17 seconds remaining in overtime to give the Warriors a 5-4 win at the Kinsmen Sportsplex.

The contest was the first exhibition game of the season after the Saskatchewan Hockey Association reached Phase Two of their return-to-hockey plan on Saturday, and featured a back-and-forth contest with plenty of offensive opportunities for both teams.

“Coming out on the right side of a good hockey game is a positive obviously, but there’s lots to work on,” said Warriors coach Shane Smith. “It was tough for the kids, seven months off of not playing competitive hockey and getting thrown right in the mix. Then in the first period I think you saw a lot of jitters and as the game went on, it was very fast and very competitive. It was a great hockey game, they have a good team over there and I think we’re going to have a lot of good battles with them through the season.”

Swift Current got off to a fast start, taking a 2-0 lead out of the opening 12 minutes. The Warriors were quick to strike back before the first period was out, though, as Gibbs scored the Warriors first goal of the season with 5:38 to play and was followed under a minute later by Carter Hudyma with the tying goal.

“We had a real tough start, maybe we were awakened to the level of speed in this league and took a little bit of time to adjust, but once they got adjusted it picked up really well,” Smith said. “The last two periods definitely went well for us.”

Elijah McFadden and Gibbs scored in the second to give Moose Jaw a 4-2 lead before Swift Current would get back within one with 22 seconds left.

The Broncos would tie the game with 6:43 remaining in the third, setting the stage for a three-on-three overtime dominated by Swift Current and featuring several big saves from goaltender Grayson Hrenyk. That is, until Gibbs picked up the puck on a breakaway as time ran down and capped things off with his hat trick goal.

13U AA Warriors Gibbs shootWarriors forward Ryan Gibbs shoots and scores the overtime winner.

“Our goaltender played really well, making some big saves for us at the right time,” Smith said, adding that he would have liked to have seen fewer penalties from his squad -- the Warriors took seven minors to the Broncos three. 

“We had some discipline issues, we don’t want to be taking that many penalties, and the old cliche ‘your goaltender has to be your best penalty killer’ was definitely true for us today.

So we’ll move forward from that, build on some discipline stuff and keep working.”

Hudyma finished the game with three assists to go along with his first period goal.

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