Home opening weekend!
Friday night the game opened with a short ceremony introducing the players to the excited home crowd packed into Barkman arena, who were silenced early by a Sait goal in the first minute. The Trojans kept the pressure on during some early power plays but Briercrest was exceptional on the penalty kill and brought some life back into the building. The wind got taken out of the Clippers sails when Sait tallied once in the dying seconds of the first and twice in the first minute of the second to jump to a 4-0 lead. Later in the second Tyler Murray beautifully redirected a Mitch Lutz point shot between his legs for the Clippers first goal at home and the resulting cheer was deafening. Captain Craig Cornelsen finished off a nice rush with a goal and the Clippers would end the second trailing 4-2. In the third the Clips came close a few times on the power play but it was Sait who added two goals to take the game by a score of 6-2
Saturday afternoon began much like Friday with Sait scoring in the first minute giving the Clippers an uphill battle. Some fantastic work on the penalty kill and great goal tending by Jesse Chenard kept the Clippers in the game through the first two periods despite having to kill a ridiculous amount of penalties. Sadly the refs took the game out of the hands of the players as the Clippers find themselves down two men early in the third and Sait scored on a play where one of their players was laying on top of Chenard not allowing him to get up and get in position. The Clipper penalty kill was outstanding during the game limiting the chances of the Trojans and Briercrest would score late in the game when Craig Cornelsen buried the puck at the tail end of a nifty passing play. The final score was 4-1 in favor of the visitors.