St Malo Warriors 30th anniversary year bringing championship hopes
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This article was published 24/10/2023 (452 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The St Malo Arena has a slightly different look this year. In celebration of the St Malo Warriors’ 30th anniversary, the arena has painted a custom logo marking the anniversary at centre ice.
A new look isn’t the only thing head coach and general manager Ralph Collette hopes marks the team’s 30th season. He’s aiming for a Capital Region Junior Hockey Luge (CRJHL) championship.
Collette even said the team has been building up to peak this season to coincide with the anniversary. The team came up a couple games short last season, falling in the league finals to Selkirk.
“We’re prepared for this year,” Collette said, noting every game this year is going to be a grind.
“Not that we didn’t want to win last year… It’s always tough. Teams are very competitive.”
After getting off to a 2-0 start, including a win against Selkirk, St Malo stumbled against Arborg in a re-match of the highly entertaining seven-game semi-final the two teams played last season.
“It was good learning for us,” Collette said.
“We got timely, bad penalties which kind of cost us… I don’t think it was a well-played game, but in saying that, it’s still early in the season, and there’s still a lot of kinks to work out.”
Not only did St Malo take a lot of penalties, Arborg made them pay when they had men in the box, scoring four powerplay goals en route to a 6-3 victory.
St Malo was able to take a 3-1 lead mid-way through the second period, before the parade to the penalty box began. Collette said his team was drawn into Arborg’s strengths, without knowing how to play in a physical style without taking penalties.
“Arborg’s a physical team,” Collette said.
“Some of our new guys didn’t expect them to be as physical as they were, and credit to them. They played a very physical game… and we retaliated.”
Collette said he expects every team in the league to be gunning for the Warriors, as they reached the finals last year while only losing a single player to age.
“For us, it’s a process through the year,” he said.
“We know we have a good squad, we know we can beat anybody, we just want to be healthy for a run in February.”
St Malo has yet to clinch a championship in the CRJHL, as the league was formed after a split with the Keystone Junior Hockey League in the fall of 2018. Their last championship in the Keystone league was in 2009.