By Shane Tomayer
Wednesday the Bobcats hosted Whitecourt, the North division leader. Wolverines have owned the season series between the two. But the Cats have been back on a roll as of late. 5 straight wins, battling hard and working their way towards their first round match up, the Grande Prairie Storm.
First period was uneventful in terms of scoring. The Bobcats did however make sure that the penalty box door was still working well, making a few trips to Troopers office, and checking in on long term volunteers Vern Curtis and Ryan Leblanc. Always important in an older building like the Civic to ensure that things are still in good working condition.
In the second both teams scored power play goals first was the Wolverines but Costantino answered 5:40 later assisted by Steinke and Birch. The Cats checked in on Vern and Ryan a couple more times just to be safe.
For the third period the order changed. Kai Billey opened the scoring. Whitecourt answered, locking the score at 2. The Bobcats are a team focused on community engagement and thought they’d check in on the fellas across from the players bench just one more time before heading to overtime. By all accounts Vern and Ryan and the other volunteers are doing just fine.
The extra frame was an exciting one. Plenty of open ice. Plenty of opportunity for the Bobcats to prove to teams around the league – and maybe themselves – that they can compete with the best teams in the AJHL. 3:20 into the 4th period the tenacity of Matthew Hikida paid off. He was like an animal in the wild – lets say a Bobcat – stalking his prey, eventually pouncing at the blue line taking the puck off of Ethan Short and heading up ice. Waiting for the an opening he found Kade Fendelet on his right side in the neutral zone and sent the local forward into the offensive zone. Hikida would chase down the left available for a return pass, but the back check of Whitecourts leading scorer took the lane way forcing Fendelet to take the shot…. from their side that may have been a mistake. Fendelet blew the puck past the goalie for his second game winning goal of the season. This also marked 6 straight wins for the good guys.
Historians take note. 7:00PM Friday March 7, 2025 marked the opening puck drop on the last Jr A regular season game ever to be played at the Centennial Civic Centre. GFL Environmental was the game day sponsor. Pregame there was a $5,000 presentation to the Lloydminster Interval Home Society from The Full Circle Project. On top of that 1357 fans loaded up the Civic Center to watch the Bobcats last home (regular season) game of the 24/25 campaign against the Devon Xtreme.
Coming in the Bobcats are in a fight trying to climb to second place and home ice for the playoffs. Hot is an understatement for the Border City team. Winning 6 straight, outscoring their opponents 28-9 over that stretch with a number of players also making milestones and turning up their individual games heading into the playoff push – seems like great timing. The Xtreme on the other hand are trending the other direction. Wrapping up their inaugural season last place in the AJHL 2-8 in their last 10 games. These are the teams that you need to be cautious of. Eyes already on the postseason, playing loose, maybe even desperate, nothing to lose. Additionally there’s the risk of bad habits or taking things for granted, making mistakes, getting injured or putting up a loss while trying to secure home ice.
Most of those concerns would be put to rest soon enough. The game was tight. Close checking early but 4 minutes in a great set up by Kai Billey found Steinke who would make no mistake opening the scoring. The game sheet doesn’t paint a clear picture of that first period. Cats outshot the Xtreme 14-3 in the opener but that was more about the Devon club struggling to hit the net. They worked for opportunities and simply couldn’t hit the mark.
Early in the second the game evened at 1 when Jason Huang jumped on a rebound in tight and put the puck behind Connor Graham. While the shot count would look more even for the middle frame the scoring did not. Jaxan Hopko answered the Huang goal just over a minute later. Alessio Nardelli would add to that 4 minutes later and then Fendelet would score his 18th and 19th of the season in the second half of the period.
Period three would see more of the same. El-Tahhan (realizing his Bobcats goal scoring lead was suddenly in danger) got after things on the powerplay to start the third. Tyson Baschuk answered that goal with one of his own shortly after to return to a 4 goal deficit for Devon with plenty of hockey left to play. But it was too little, too late and the Bobcats would not relent. Billey on an incredible individual effort would score his 15th of the year. Fendelet would cement his hattrick (shorthanded) to tie El-Tahhan again for the team goal lead – it sits as Fendelets second career hattrick, his first was back on November 1. Finally to answer the question of who would score the last regular season Jr A goal at the Civic, Magowan and Costantino would connect to set up Gus El-Tahhan for his 21st of the year. A 9-2 final would close out the home side of the Bobcats season, giving Lloydminster fans plenty to talk about and plenty to be excited about going into the playoffs. The 9 goals is the Cats highest on the season. 11 players registered point, 7 registered multiple and while Kael Skrepnek was one of the players who didn’t register a point, he did record his first AJHL fighting major. The judges card suggests the Bobcats won that as well. Further, the win makes for 7 straight for the Bobcats, their best streak of the season.
Starting the postseason at home or in Grande Prairie is still up for grabs. The Cats will need some help from other Alberta teams to make that happen. The Storm play the Oil Barons and Thunder before hosting the Bobcats in the last two games of the regular season. Home ice advantage will come down to the wire and hockey fans may see two teams square off in as many as 9 consecutive games with a chance at a trip to the North final on the line.
Games in GP can be seen on Flo Hockey, puck drop at 7:00 on the 14th, 6:00 on the 15th and then it’s time for the best time of the year. Playoff tickets and season tickets for 25/26 are on sale at the Bobcats office.
Previous Game Recap
The days are longer, the sun warmer, snow cap melting on the roof is leaking through to the concourses along the walls of the Centennial Civic Center. This can mean only one thing. The regular season is coming to a close. There are fewer and fewer opportunities to watch Jr A hockey at Lloydminsters 58 year old hockey institution. But as fewer and fewer games remain they seem to mean more and more. The Bobcats have locked up a playoff birth, however the geography of their first round is still in question. They sit just 3 points out of second place for home ice against the Grande Prairie Storm. So simply put, every point matters.
2025 while in its infancy has been full of ups and downs for the Bobcats. They wrapped up 2024 with success seemingly on automatic. With the new calendar wins came with more difficulty. Don’t misconstrue. The Bobcats have not been ‘bad’, just not as good going, at a 500 pace in the second half.
That had shown signs of improvement as of late. Their southern swing in early February was met with questionable results. They started the road trip 0-3 frustrated especially by a great effort in Canmore where the Cats had two goals called back that would have had them leading 3-0, instead they dropped the game 4-2. They did rebound from there with a decisive win the following day in Olds. From there the Cats fate improved to 3-1 coming into this weekend, with the three wins coming in a row against Devon, Grande Prairie, and Drayton Valley. Combining those wins the Bobcats outscored their opponents 14-4. A fine building block for a season reset if ever there was one.
This weekend the Bobcats were set for competition Friday and Saturday evenings, facing two teams going in opposite directions. Friday they would face the Olds Grizzlys who find themselves struggling through another season. Coming into Lloyd they’d dropped 11 straight, and had not recorded a win in the month of February. Saturday had the Drumheller Dragons coming to town. The Dragons had won 3 straight and 8 of their last 10, and had clinched playoffs as of puck drop Saturday.
The simple thought Friday was that Olds has the worst record in the AJHL South division, having just 14 wins on the season. The average hockey fan may consider this to be a walk in the park. But the devil is in the details. The South division is incredibly strong this season, and while the Grizz have only 14 wins they’ve beaten some top teams in this league – teams that have given the Bobcats struggles. Keys for the game were quite simple, play hard, play clean and stay out of the box. Mission was accomplished.
The Bobcats dictated the play for a full 60 minutes. They opened the scoring early in period one and scored twice in the first, twice in the second and three more times in the third period. Offense wasn’t exactly evenly distributed as it seemed like a couple of Bobcats were on a different level. Luke Fritz was first on the sheet and ended the game with a goal and an assist to build off his totals from last week that saw him recognized as AJHL player of the week. Jack Birch helped out from the backend with a pair of assists. Matthew Hikida had the (statistically) best game of his AJHL career scoring twice and assisting on another – in his first game with two goals. Stealing the show however was local Kade Fendelet, who put up 2 goals, 2 assists and a number of hard plays on the opposition bodies including a thundering check in the third period that would stand as the Keva Concrete Crunch of the Game. It was a throw back to old time hockey, the best reference point would be to look up Wendel Clark hitting Bruce Bell in 1986 – difference being that the Olds Grizzlys player was able to get up and finish the game. Fendelets 4 point night was his second such game this season.
Credit where due the most overworked player in the game was Ben Dardis, goaltender for the Grizzlys. He faced 58 shots on the night, and with a lesser goalie this felt like it could have been a 12 goal game for the Cats. In the Bobcat end, Connor Graham was not tested nearly as often. From a goalies perspective that can make things much more difficult. He was perfect through more than 59 minutes but a shot through traffic with 42 seconds on the clock got past him to end his bid for his second shutout of the season. Final score Friday was a one sided 7-1 victory, in front of a 905 person crowd.
Saturday painted a different picture. The Dragons are perennially atop the South standings. Coached by Kevin Hasselberg they are built and play more like a traditional North Division team. Meaning they play fast, they play physical and they can give teams fits. If the Bobcats could come out with the same tempo and style of play Saturday as they did Friday the likelihood of victory felt very high. To the contrary the Dragons held a 2-1 season record over Lloydminster on the season. This match up held a little more to it as well being that brothers Wyatt and Tate Yule could be facing off against each other for the last time with the older Tate (Drumheller captain) scheduled to graduate out of Jr hockey in the next couple of months.
The Dragons have given up more powerplay opportunities than any other team in the league. But they’ve also got some of the best special teams league wide with a powerplay over 22% and a PK with a success rate above 80%.
That power play was a factor early as 1 minute into a Nardelli tripping penalty the Dragons were able to open the scoring just 3:25 into regulation. Through the first the Dragons treated the Bobcats the way they’d treated Olds the night before. The home side was unable to register a shot in the opening half of period one and only put 4 onto the Dragons net by the end of the opening 20.
Things improved as the second period went on, turning momentum bit by bit until Gus El-Tahhan scored on the powerplay 6 minutes into the period on a 2 on 0 tic tac toe play with Kaiden Wiltsie. Drumheller answered back a few minutes later but Kai Billey would even the score before the periods close, with his first goal (at home) as a Bobcat – after being acquired at the deadline.
The shift was completed in the third. Bobcats controlled most of the play and outshot their competition 11-4 in the final period. Matthew Hikida scored with 1:15 left on the clock to give the Bobcats their first lead of the game – assisted by solid effort of Costantino and pure heads-up patience by Allessio Nardelli. The third goal forced Hasselbergs hand and he emptied the net immediately after for an extra attacker. While this provided them zone possession briefly the Bobcats took the puck away and Ben Costantino sent the puck into the open cage from his own end to cement the victory 4-2 victory and give Wyatt Yule bragging rights over his older brother – at least for a while. Notable through the game was the play of the younger Yule. While the rookie didn’t show up on the stat lines he was a notable presence in the game and showed the continual growth of his game.
Also not reflected (yet) on the game sheet, was that Hikida initiated the take away in his own end and fed the puck to Costantino for the empty net goal (currently reflected as unassisted). Assuming this will be corrected by the league offices this week that would give the Richmond BC product 6 points on the week, going back to Sundays win over Drayton Valley, and will certainly have him in the discussion for league accolaids this week.
Costantino came to the Bobcats just prior to Christmas. A notably large defenseman whose rights were acquired in the Orrin Olsen trade earlier in the season. At that point he was recognized as difficult to get around and carrying a dangerous shot while also being more than willing to jump up into the play and lead the rush from his own zone. As fate would have it, injury and illness forced the creativity of Jeff Woywitka and Matt Brassard in early February. In a pinch with bodies they made the decision to move ‘Tino’ up to the wing. Something of a trial perhaps while the roster was depleted. It’s turned out to be a risk worth taking. In 8 games as a forward he’s had 5 goals and 5 assists – naturally this doesn’t include the two goals he had called back against against Canmore, his first game up front.
If a move like this seems familiar Nigel Dube did the same thing with Jack Parker in 2022/23, which garnered great results and ended with Parker committing to the Grant MacEwan Griffins where he’s currently playing his second season.
The Bobcats will look to extend their current 5 game win streak this Wednesday evening when they will face some tough competition at home against the Whitecourt Wolverines. Puck drop is slated for 7:00 with the pregame show kicking off on Flo Hockey 15 minutes prior.
