The sounds of hundreds of orange cowbells rang out from the Drumheller Memorial Arena Friday night as the Drumheller Dragons played their first home game of the 2014-2015 regular season. The Dragons welcomed the Calgary Mustangs who played hard, but the home team took a 5-2 win, their second of the season.
The night began with the anticipation of the reveling and rising of the Dragons 2013-2014 South Division Champions banner. Over 750 fans watched and cheered as the banner was raised while they rang their bells.
Head Coach Brian Curran said he doesn’t feel any pressure because of the banner.
“I can separate two seasons. To me at the end of the day, we won the southern division championship, great, I am proud of our guys, our guys worked hard and the community was amazing with support, but we didn’t win the championship. Now I am more focused on getting to that stage.”
Game action got underway as the Mustangs opened the scoring two minutes and four seconds into the first period with a shorthanded goal from Zach McNeill. The Dragons came back two minutes and forty seconds later with a goal scored by Ethan James, his first of the season, with an assist from newly named captain Ryan Suchorab.
James said scoring the first home ice goal of the regular season felt “really good. I didn’t even realize it went off me. It was kind of a weird goal, shot from the point, I just got in front of the net and it bounced in.”
The Dragons second goal of the evening, his second of the season, was scored at the 10:58 mark by Mitchell Cook from Dakota Zaharichuk, but less than a minute later Dragons Hunter Mills scored his first of the season, a powerplay goal, from Wyatt Noskey, making the score 3-1. The Mustangs finished the first period scoring off at the 14:20 mark with a goal by Mason Mitchell from Phelan Shaw and Romano Morrison leaving the score at 3-2.
Curran said there was nervousness in the first.
“Just trying to get guys to relax. It is hard when you are playing a home opener and especially with the banner raising. I could see it, we were working, but we weren’t working enough.”
Second period action came less than a minute in when Dragons Zaharichuk scored his first goal of the season from Cook and Jarell Pinchuk. The fifth and final goal of the game, his first of the season, came from Dragons’ Suchorab at 8:28 of the second from Mills and Noskey. Curran said the second period was a turn around. “Some of those shifts there, 8-12 shifts were absolute domination. At the end of the day, I thought our power play was good. I find the mustangs are a good team. They play hard, but at the end of the day, they didn’t play quite hard enough.”
James said he thought the team played really well. “The second period I thought was really strong for us. First period we came out flying like it was a home opener, like we were all pumped and ready to go. I thought we played a good full 60 (minutes).”
Curran said he thought the atmosphere was “great. I think the fans enjoyed the game. A team like the Mustangs really work hard at getting their place and they are not backing down. I was happy with our performance tonight.” The Dragons next home game is Tuesday September 16 when they will face the Okotoks Oilers with a 7p.m. start at memorial arena.
