Canes' Lose 4-3 to Rebels

Austin Fyten opened the scoring on Teddy Bear Toss night at the Enmax Centre. Fyten's 10th goal of the season ignited a deluge of 2238 stuffed animals onto the ice. It was overall a pretty good start to the game for the Canes'. They killed off an early Red Deer 5 on 3 power play and managed to come back right after and get the first goal of the game. The Rebels though evened the score about 2 minutes later when Coaldale's Adam Kambeitz streaked down the left wing a rifled a shot off the goal post, beating Brandon Anderson in the Hurricanes goal.

In the second period, the Rebels would take the lead for the first time in the game as Kambeitz would score his second of the night to give his team a 2-1 lead after 40 minutes. Coming into last night's game Kambeitz had just two goals on the season. A good night for him in front of some family and friends playing pretty much at home. Minutes before that, Brody Sutter had a short-handed breakaway for Lethbridge, but was robbed by Rebels Goalie Darcy Keumper who made a great stop. That very well could've been the turning point in the game.

It was a back and forth 3rd period. Mike Reddington scored his first goal of the season early to tie the game at 2, but Red Deer kept chipping away and soon after took a 3-2 lead. For the second time, Lethbridge would tie it up on a goal by Mitch Maxwell. That's his team-leading 14th goal of the season. The Rebels would again take the lead, this time 4-3 half way through the 3rd and that would be as close as the Hurricanes would get. Adam Kambeitz earned the game's first star. He finished with two goals and one assist to lead the way for the Rebels. The Hurricanes have just one win in their past 8 games and currently sit 12 points out of a playoff spot with 5 games to go before the Christmas break.

It was certainly a wild night. The Rebels didn't arrive to Lethbridge until 6pm. They travelled all day in snow storm that got worse and worse the farther south they went. A blizzard rolled across the Lethbridge region about mid-afternoon Friday and conditions deteriorated as the day went on. The Rebels though, left earlier than normal from Red Deer and a 3 and half hour bus ride turned into more like a 6 hour bus ride. Rebels Assistant Coach Dallas Gaume told me before the game it was so bad, there were moments they seriously thought about turning around and going back to Red Deer. Nice to see they all made it in one piece! A tip of the hat to the Hurricanes fans who braved the horrible weather to come out to last night's game. There was a much bigger crowd than I expected given the blizzard outside. The official attendance was 3958, although it looked like there was less than that and I can certainly understand with weather the way it was.

Head Coach and G.M. Rich Preston stressed the importance on our pre-game show last night of getting more contributions from players other than the likes of Ashton, Bancks, Maxwell, Braes, and Fyten. He was very happy with the goals that Brody Sutter and Max Ross scored on Tuesday in Medicine Hat and he wants to see more secondary scoring as this season moves on. Last night the Canes' got a goal from Mike Reddington. That's his first of the season. It's nice to see a few other players on this team getting some goals too.

The Hurricanes are back at it tonight when they host Medicine Hat. This will be the Tigers first visit to Lethbridge this season. Medicine Hat lost a 2-1 game in a shootout to Saskatoon last night. Game time is 7pm (MT). The pre-game show on CJOC at 6:30.

Thanks,

Pat