Fishermen continue winning ways with pair of weekend victories

The Selkirk Fishermen continue to win hockey games.

But it hasn’t exactly been easy.

Selkirk won another pair of close games last weekend in Capital Region Junior Hockey League action.

On Saturday evening, the Fishermen defeated the North Winnipeg Satelites 3-1 at the Rec Complex.

“I thought we played really well when we were even strength and playing the game,” said Fishermen head coach Chris Poponick. “We had a lot of opportunities to score and we missed a lot of opportunities. It’s a double-edged sword, you want to get the opportunities but we have to start capitalizing on them and that’s the thing that has been biting us the last few games.”

North Winnipeg’s Brett Williams scored a first-period but Selkirk responded with second-period markers from Ben Kelly, Reece Tessier, on the power play, and Kyle Melo.

Riley Bannerman stopped 23 North Winnipeg shots in the win.

The third period was a feisty one with several fights breaking out. Fights have been rare in the CRJHL this season with all of the players required to wear full-face shields.

“It was a typical Selkirk/North Winnipeg game with a little bit of antics and stuff,” Poponick said. “Some of the things might have been preventable if things were called a little bit differently but it is what it is and now we have to deal with the aftermath, which is a bunch of suspensions.”

Selkirk started the weekend with a hard-fought 3-2 win over the Arborg Ice Dawgs on Friday at the Rec Complex.

“It was another game where we had lots of opportunities but we just couldn’t capitalize on them,” Poponick said. “We’re playing good, sound defence and keeping the puck away from the net and out of the net, so three goals is enough.”

Tessier scored the game-winning goal with just nine seconds remaining in the third period.

Josh Poponick and Evan Leeson netted second-period goals for Selkirk.

Logan Clarke and Josh Roche replied for Arborg.

Selkirk outshot Arborg 45-23 as Brendan Hocaluk earned the win in goal.

The Fishermen have been very good defensively this season, allowing just 16 goals in eight games.

“Considering how young our defence is, it’s been kind of nice and I’ve been using three goalies so far this season with two of them being rookies,” Poponick noted. “Our back end basically has four rookies on defence, a second-year guy and a third-year guy, and we’ve been doing a good job keeping pucks away from the net and the goaltenders have been stopping what they can see.”

The Fishermen, now with 22 points to lead the CRJHL, will be busy with three games in four days this week. Selkirk will visit Arborg on Thursday (7:30 p.m.) and the St. Malo Warriors Friday (7:30 p.m.) before hosting the Lundar Falcons on Sunday at 3:30 p.m.