Fishermen finish in top spot in CRJHL standings

The Selkirk Fishermen’s goal was to finish first at the conclusion of the Capital Region Junior Hockey League regular season.

They accomplished that Sunday when they soundly defeated the St. Malo Warriors 5-1 at the Rec Complex.

“Every year, we set a couple goals,” said Fishermen head coach Chris Poponick. “Be in first place at Christmas time, which we were able to do, and then finish the regular season in first place to give us that home-ice advantage in the playoffs. The guys stepped up and played fantastic on Friday and then on Sunday we played even better.”

The well-deserved victory gave the Fishermen 75 points, two ahead of the Warriors.

Jordan Donald continues to play very good hockey, pacing Selkirk with two goals while Reece Tessier, Travis Spratt and Dane Derewianchuk added singles.

Chad King chipped in with three assists.

Logan Unger scored St. Malo’s lone goal in the second period. Riley Bannerman made 28 saves for the win.

Selkirk was able to completely shut down the CRJHL’s top scorer, Maxime Collette. He led the league in goals scored (36) and points (61) this past season. His teammates, Alex Murray and Christian Hince, were third and fourth, respectively, in points scored during the regular season.

“(Maxime’s) line has done a really good job of (scoring) this year,” Poponick said. “They also added a few more pieces but we really played really sound defence, even on our shot sheets on the power play. They had a grand total of four shots, all from the blueline or outside. Our guys got in front of pucks and just made life difficult for them to get to the net. And then when they did get to the net, Riley Bannerman made some fantastic saves. 

“It was really a full team effort.”

Last Friday, Selkirk thumped the Falcons 11-3 in Lundar. The Fishermen did a really good job utilizing their speed and firing pucks at the net.

Selkirk led 1-0 after the first period and then exploded for seven second-period goals to take an 8-1 lead after 40 minutes.

Donald led Selkirk with two goals and two assists while Cole Wasnie and Evan Bedard each tallied twice and added a helper. Jordan Simko chipped in with a goal and two assists.

Tessier, Josh Poponick, Travis Spratt and Braeden Hummel also scored for Selkirk .

Bryce Allary, Josh Wilkinson, and Ronald Johnson replied for Lundar.

Owen Derewianchuk made 19 saves for the victory.

Selkirk now awaits to play the winner of a best-of-three series between the Arborg Ice Dawgs and the North Winnipeg Satelites. That series started this past Tuesday.

Selkirk will host the winner of that series in Game 1 on Sunday (8 p.m.) at the Rec Complex.

Game 2 will be played in either Arborg or North Winnipeg next Tuesday (8 p.m.) while Game 3 returns to Selkirk on March 6 at 7:30 p.m.

The rest of the series schedule had not been released by press time.