Mad Hatter Theatre Company artistic director David Zulkoskey has waited nearly two decades to find the right group of students to put on the company’s upcoming production.
After 19 years, he’s confident he has his group.
The Carlton Comprehensive Public High School drama company is in the process of bringing “The Insanity of Mary Girard” to the stage for a one-day only performance on March 21. Playwright Lanie Robertson’s eerie and tragic historical drama is full of heavy themes and difficult subject matter, but after years of leaving the play on the shelf, Zulkoskey said this group is talented and mature enough to take on the responsibility.
“A lot of people are truly ignorant of this time period and the roles of men and women in this time period,” he explained. “I needed a group of kids who could take this seriously. In the process, they’ve had fun and they’ve learned a lot.”
Set in 1790, the story focuses on the downward spiral of Mary Girard, who is declared legally insane at the behest of her husband, Stephen, and sent to an asylum.
The play received positive reviews after it was published in 1979, with critics applauding its portrayal of mental illness and the rights and roles of men and women in 18th Century society.
The Mad Hatter version made a few changes to the script, with Robertson’s blessing, to create an expanded version that Zulkoskey hopes will get people thinking about how society treats women and people struggling with mental illness.
“A key thing in the program is the idea of empathy,” he explained. “The play is full of moments in which Mary is tormented and bullied, and if we’re really going to deal with that in our society, I think we need to find a way to care about others, and that’s done through empathy.”
The play has its roots in the life of the historical Mary Lum Girard, the wife of a wealthy Philadelphia banker and philanthropist. The real Girard had a history of violent and uncontrolled outbursts, and was declared insane and committed to an asylum while pregnant.
Although historical accounts note Girard’s husband spent lavishly on her medical care, he also took a mistress to replace her, a practice that was considered natural at the time. By most historical accounts, her husband considered their marriage to be over. The real Mary would live on for another 25 years.
As part of the Mad Hatter production, one student did extensive historical research into the period to bring 18th Century to life. For the cast and crew, seeing the how women like Girard were treated was shocking.
“Definitely times have changed,” said Grade 12 student Samantha Paradis, who plays the title role of Mary. “I think mental illness is a big thing nowadays. People are talking about it more, which is good, and I think doing this play gives a little bit of insight into how things have changed … and how mental illness is something that is still relevant today.”
“Looking back at these social contexts, you can see so clearly in the play how we’ve progressed as a society,” added stage manager and student director Jordyn Pillar. “It makes you think, ‘wow, I’ can’t believe that was a thing.’”
Although the play is full of difficult themes and heavy topics, Paradis and Pillar said the cast and crew aren’t intimidated. Instead, they’re looking forward to the challenge. In fact, the cast and crew were actually the ones who suggested performing the play in the first place.
“It crosses a lot of controversial topics that are seen in today’s society, such as feminism and things like that, which I think is pretty cool, to bring in a play that is set in 1790, but relates to today’s society,” Pillar explained.
Both students, along with Zulkoskey, say it’s a timely play, as society struggles to deal with the effects of mental illness and the revelations that spawned the #metoo movement. Ideally, they’re hoping it will get people thinking about where society is headed now, while giving them a chance to appreciate high quality theatre, where the costumes, the stage props and even the soundtrack is student designed.
“I hope that (audiences) will enjoy it, be entertained and also get to see a little bit of what hard work and team work does,” Paradis said. “We all enjoy doing it and we love to put on a good show for everyone.”
Mad Hatter Theatre Company will also perform the play at the Saskatchewan Drama Association Region 11 Festival in Saskatoon on March 24.
Carlton play to explore mental health, women’s issues
Mintos pull out offensive fireworks in Game Two victory
It was a tale of two styles at the Art Hauser Centre on Sunday.
For 60 minutes, the Prince Albert Mintos and Regina Pat Canadians wore each other down with hard hits and grinding physical play, but in the midst of all that, Kyrell Sopotyk and Kishaun Gervais found a way to produce one of the finest offensive displays in Midget AAA hockey.
Sopotyk’s hat trick and Gervais backbreaking third period tally, along with a 24-save shutout from Cale Elder, were enough to guide Prince Albert to a 4-0 victory, and a crucial 2-0 lead in the best-of-five semifinal series.
The win was one of the stranger victories for the Mintos and head coach Ken Morrison, but they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It’s kind of weird. You have four nice goals thrown into a grind-it-out type game where nothing else is happening,” Morrison chuckled afterwards. “We’ll take it.”
Unlike game one, where they had to battle back from an early 3-0 deficit, Prince Albert wasted little time in jumping out to a first period lead.
Sopotyk opened the scoring at 7:11 when he raced around a Regina defenceman, cut across the goalmouth and slid the puck past sprawling Pat Canadians goaltender Jared Thompson for a 1-0 lead.
Undaunted, the visitors open the second with fresh urgency, and a series of punishing checks that had more than a few Mintos sprawled out on the ice. However, Regina’s zealous physical play came back to haunt them when Chase Nameth took a cross-checking penalty about three and a half minutes into the period. The call set the stage for Sopotyk’s second of the night, this time on the power play.
The Mintos captain victimized the Pat Canadians with speed in the first, but in the second it was a nifty bit of stickhandling that turned the Regina defence inside out, and a quick shot to the glove side that put Prince Albert up 2-0.
From the other end of the ice, the goals were a welcome sight to Prince Albert netminder Cale Elder.
“It was pretty cool,” Elder said afterwards. “They made some really nice moves, they worked hard and they deserved the goals that they got.”
Although Elder faced only four shots in the first period, the workload picked up significantly in the second. The Minto netminder found himself under siege at various points as a renewed Regina forecheck hemmed Prince Albert into their own end for minutes at a time.
The closest the Pat Canadians came to breaking the shutout came during a late five-on-three powerplay, when Parker Hendren rattled a shot off the post. However, for the rest of the night, Elder calmly turned aside the high-powered Regina attack, and earned his first shutout of the playoffs in the process.
“It felt great,” Elder said. “It was awesome to get that out of the way, especially against a good team like that.”
As impressive as the Mintos’ first two goals were, Kishaun Gervais might have had the best of the night. With just five minutes to play in the third, Gervais pulled the puck between his legs and fired it into the top left hand corner in one fluid motion, all while being hacked and slashed by a pair of Regina defenders at the top of the crease.
On this night, even the empty netters had an air of quality to them. After blocking a shot in his own end, Sopotyk hustled down ice where he picked a Regina defenceman’s pocket and stuffed home his third of the evening.
“Sopotyk and Gervais, they have a lot of skill. They have the ability to make plays, and they were able to do that tonight,” Morrison said.
Although the Mintos find themselves up 2-0, nobody is taking game three lightly. The Pat Canadians won three of four regular season matchups between the two clubs, including both games in Regina.
Morrison said both the players and coaches were happy with Sunday’s effort. Now, it’s just a matter of doing it one more time.
“It’s still going to be tough,” he said. “We’re going to have some adversity at some point here that we’re going to have to try and battle through. That being said, hopefully we can keep rolling and keep playing well.”
“We just have to stick to what we’ve been doing,” Elder added. “We can’t get away from our game plan…. We can’t think of it as being the last game (of the series). We have to think of it as just another game, and just go from there.”
The two clubs meet again in Regina for game three on Wednesday, March 11. Puck drop is 8 p.m. at the Co-operators Centre. If necessary, game four will be played on Saturday, March 11 at the Art Hauser Centre. Game time is scheduled for 7 p.m.
Historical buildings coming down
After months of debate, city council has voted to stick with the original plan to remove the Nisbet Church and Block House buildings from Kinsmen Park.
City council delayed a proposal last fall that would have seen parts of the two buildings salvaged for a new exhibit at the Prince Albert Historical Museum. The rest would have been torn down and thrown away. At the time, the museum was researching and applying for grant proposals that would give them the $750,000 needed to keep the building standing.
That funding never materialized, and on Monday, council voted by a 7-1 margin to support the original plan. Both buildings will come down in June.
Ward 4 Coun. Dennis Ogrodnick was the lone dissenter at Monday’s vote. He said it’s discouraging to see the building couldn’t be saved, but emphasized that he’s ready to move on.
“Council made a decision and I have to respect that decision,” he said on Thursday. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s done now. It’s going to happen.”
Ogrodnick said he’s concerned that there aren’t more specific details for a future museum exhibit. However, he’s willing to be patient.
“I’m not going to fight it because I’m a team player, and I want to be a team player on this council,” he said.
The city will provide $10,000 from the Fiscal Stabilization Fund to deconstruct the buildings. It will also house the salvaged parts indoors at the old city yards until the new museum exhibit is ready to go.
In 2010, a study determined that the structural integrity of Nisbet Church and the blockhouse was at risk. The author of the study warned that the buildings could collapse during a heavy snowfall, and would pose a safety hazard to the public given their location in Kinsmen Park.
The Prince Albert Historical Society has tried to get both buildings declared as National Historic Sites, but their proposal was turned down because they were moved from their original location.
Mayor Greg Dionne said he didn’t expect the museum or historical society would find the necessary money. After meeting with representatives from both organizations, the path forward became clear.
“(Council) wanted to make sure everyone was onside. Well, now everyone’s onside,” he said.
Looking closer to home
Prince Albert Mayor Greg Dionne wants to see more homegrown police officers and firefighters in Prince Albert, and he’s willing to bring forward a new proposal to make it happen.
On Monday, Dionne served notice that he intended to put forward a motion at the next council meeting that would give higher priority to local residents who applied for new positions at the Prince Albert Police Service and Prince Albert Fire Department.
After the meeting, Dionne said he wanted to see more recent high school graduates stay in Prince Albert, and believes creating a residency requirement is the best way to do it.
“I don’t understand why we’d hire outside the community,” he said. “We have a large youth force here that is unemployed and I believe they should have a little ‘hand up’ to get city jobs.”
Ideally, Dionne wants to see the policy expand to all city jobs, but said it’s prudent to start small with the city’s police and fire department and see how things work out. If implemented, the policy would be confined to lower level positions and not affect major job hunts that require candidates with advanced education or experience.
“In some cases, we have no choice in the city, but to look outside,” he explained.
Issuing residency requirements for city employees is a common, but controversial, topic. Some Canadian cities, like Vancouver, require their fire and rescue personnel to live within a pre-defined area to be eligible for jobs in that sector.
The topic is hotly debated in the U.S., where the court system has struck down and upheld a number of residency requirement challenges in various states. For example, in 2016, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that laws forcing Milwaukee police officers, firefighters, teachers and other public workers to live within city limits were in violation of state law. Cities like Vancouver have maintained that such laws are necessary due to the on-call nature of the job.
Dionne said he’s already been in contact with cities that have residency requirement laws on the books. He doesn’t expect the adoption of such laws to have any negative effects on the city’s relationship with other Saskatchewan communities.
“I can’t see any repercussions coming,” he said. “It’s not like a trade war.”
Dionne added that he’s concerned a lack of employment opportunities are the main reason young people are leaving Prince Albert, and he’s hopeful they’ll stay if given priority when new jobs open up.
Notices of motion are formal actions that allow city council members to introduce new items for discussion. They cannot become law unless discussed and approved by council at a future meeting.
Snow removal a hot topic at city council
Snow removal was a hot topic throughout Prince Albert since the start of the week, and that extended to Monday’s city council meeting.
Ward 7 Coun. Dennis Nowoselsky was the most vocal councillor to bring up the issue, especially when it came to clearing snow out of the city’s downtown area. Nowoselsky said he wants the city to start discussing what resources, capital and labour would be required to speed up the process. The goal is to make changes when next year’s city budget comes up for discussion in the fall.
“People are getting stuck all over downtown,” Nowoselsky said during Monday’s meeting. “I know it was a major blizzard, but we’ve got to do better.”
When asked where he would find the money, Nowoselsky alluded to removing funds from the police budget and earmarking them for snow removal.
Ward 8 Coun.Ted Zurakowski said he’d also fielded a number of calls from concerned citizens wondering why the snow wasn’t being removed quicker. He sympathized with those concerns, but emphasized residents needed to understand the process, especially during what he called an “exceptional” weather event.
“I think it’s important for the public to understand how few of our public works employees are actually in the snow removal or plowing crew,” he said. “A few years it was nine. We might be up to 11 now, and certainly we’re not asking them to work daily and through the nights. It’s a good concept, but there’s only so many (employees) and they can’t work 36 or 48 hours straight, and the snow keeps coming.”
According to the city’s roadways manager, 11 city employees and two contractors were out clearing snow on Monday. Although crews have been working overtime to remove snow, and the city has put in calls for service from a number of private contractors, the city’s public works department says they are not on pace to go over budget.
Zurakowski added that the barrier to getting quicker snow removal isn’t money. It’s the availability of equipment and labourers.
After the meeting, Mayor Greg Dionne asked residents to be patient as city crews worked their way through the city. He added that more private contractors would be augmenting city crews as they finished their other contracts.
“They’re moving as fast as they can, and as their equipment becomes available, we’ll be putting it on the street,” he explained.
To help speed up the process, the city followed a “push and pile” strategy on Monday, where they worked to open up streets, and piled snow wherever it was convenient. To help speed up efforts to haul the snow away, the city has reopened their old snow dump on 15th Street East. That property was previously put up for sale, and although the city has received offers on it, Dionne said no development would commence before snow melted in the spring.
@kerr_jas • jason.kerr@paherald.sk.ca
Winter wonderland
Prince Albert residents can look forward to a bit of a reprieve following large snowfall amounts over the weekend.
According to Environment Canada, 13.4 cm of snow fell on March 3-4, but the skies are expected to clear in the near future.
“We’re out of the woods, at least for the short-term, meaning the next week or so,” Environment Canada meteorologist Terri Lang said. “Our crystal ball usually goes around to about 10 days where we can look with some amount of confidence, and it looks like this is the end of the storm.”
Lang said Prince Albert experienced a “double whammy” of back-to-back lows which helped drive snowy conditions over the weekend. The Colorado low, which arrived Sunday evening and continued on into Monday, did most of the damage. Lang said those lows are perfectly normal, and as they leave, milder temperatures should take over. She just hopes it’s not too much too soon.
“We have a lot of snow on the ground and we don’t want rapid melting,” Lang said. “It looks like we’ll enjoy at least a couple of mild days, and get that snow melt started.”
Mild weather will come as welcome news to City of Prince Albert snow removal crews who were out clearing roads by 4 a.m. on Monday.
Brent Kennedy, the city’s roadways manager, said they can typically finish clearing the main arteries in about 16 hours, but clearing the rest of the city can take around three weeks.
The 12-person city crew was augmented by two contractor graders, and by Monday afternoon all of the city’s snow removal equipment was being put to use.
Crews spent most of Monday fighting not only the weather, but also Prince Albert drivers, some of who failed to move their vehicles after the city declared a snow route parking ban.
“For some reason, people just don’t tend to get the message,” Kennedy said. “It makes our job a lot easier when the vehicles are moved.”
Kennedy added that they didn’t want to ticket or tow people, but on Monday they were left with no choice. Sherman Drive, along with the entire length of 28th Street, caused the most problems.
“People just don’t seem to want to move,” he said.
The goal on Tuesday is to get snow removal crews working on some of Prince Albert’s back lanes, many of which were impenetrable the day before.
Drivers weren’t the only people affected by the weekend snowfall. Poor driving conditions caused the Jim Cuddy concert at the E.A. Rawlinson Centre to be postponed until March 13.
Parkland Ambulance responded to 87 incidents over the weekend, but only one serious collision that may have been influenced by the weather. Late Saturday night, three people were taken to hospital with injuries after colliding with some wildlife near Shellbrook. All three were in stable condition.
According to the Saskatchewan Highway Hotline, all highways out of Prince Albert were open as of press time.
The single day record for the largest snowfall in Prince Albert was set on March 21, 1953, when 29 cm of snow fell.
@kerr_jas • jason.kerr@paherald.sk.ca
Raiders stun Broncos with late rally
The Prince Albert Raiders have done something no team in the WHL has accomplished since December: beating the Swift Current Broncos in their own backyard.
The Raiders rallied from a three-goal second period deficit to beat the Broncos 5-4 on Parker Kelly’s shootout winner in front of 2,890 boisterous and unimpressed fans at the Credit Union I-plex.
The victory snapped the Bronco’s 11-game home winning streak, and provided a measure of revenge for a Raider team that hadn’t beat Swift Current since their first meeting of the 2017-18 season.
Despite the late heroics, Raiders coach Marc Habscheid took a grounded approach to Friday’s contest.
“We just want points,” the Raiders bench boss said. “That’s all we’re concerned about. We got the points and we’re happy.”
Although Friday’s game ended on a high note for Prince Albert, it didn’t get off to a great start. The Bronco’s jumped out to a quick 2-0 first period lead on goals from Kaden Elder and Giorgio Estephan before Sergei Sapego broke the ice for the Raiders in the second.
Sapago’s point shot beat a screened Stuart Skinner to cut the lead to 2-1, but the joy was short-lived. Former Raider Matteo Gennaro restored the two-goal lead just a minute and a half later, and chased Prince Albert starter Ian Scott from the net in the process.
The Broncos wasted little time getting to his replacement, Curtis Meger, who was making his first appearance between the pipes since Feb. 17. Giorgio Estephan capitalized on a sloppy Raider breakout a little more than a minute later for his second goal of the game, turning what looked to be a close contest into a potential route.
However the tide turned at the 13:36 mark, when Brayden Pachal fired a wrist shot past Skinner from just inside the circle to make it 4-2 and give the Raiders a bit of life heading into the third.
Vojtech Budik’s power play goal at 16:29 brought the Raiders within one, setting the stage for Jordy Stallard’s game-tying goal with less than a minute left and Meger on the bench.
The late heroics stunned the hometown crowd, but not Habscheid, who said his team deserved their fate.
“We played good the whole game,” he said afterwards. “There was nothing wrong with our game. We played great and we deserved to win.”
After a scoreless overtime period, both teams settled in for the first shootout between the two clubs since Nov. 24. The first four shooters yielded goals from Gennaro and Regan Nagy before Parker Kelly fired a quick wrist shot home to take the lead.
With the game on his stick, Swift Current’s Aleksi Heponiemi failed to stuff the puck past Meger on a deke attempt, giving Prince Albert the win.
Meger punctuated his final shootout save with a short, but well-earned celebration, having stopped 22 of 23 shots in relief, and two of three shooters in the shootout.
“He stopped the ones he should of. That’s all we ask,” Habscheid said of Meger. “He came in and did a good job, and again, it wasn’t anything flashy. He just stopped the ones he should have stopped. He stopped the pucks coming around the boards, which has helped our defenceman. He was engaged in the game. I thought he played great.”
The win gives the Raiders a five-game winning streak, and full possession of the final Eastern Conference playoff spot following a 5-3 Lethbridge Hurricanes win over the Saskatoon Blades on Friday.
Both the Canes and Raiders will try to continue their winning ways when the two Clubs meet at the Art Hauser Centre on Saturday. Puck drop is 7 p.m.
Mintos put Contacts on the brink
The Prince Albert Mintos are one win away from advancing to the next round of the SMAAAHL playoffs.
A pair of second period goals from Kyrell Sopotyk, including once on a penalty shot, and 27 saves from Cale Elder helped the Mintos take a stranglehold on the best-of-fives series with a 4-1 victory over the Saskatoon Contacts on Sunday.
The win gives Prince Albert a 2-0 series lead, and a chance to close things out at home on Wednesday.
“It’s where you want to be, going into game three at home,” Sopotyk said. “Hopefully we get a win at home and move on to round two and can focus on that series.”
Unlike Friday’s series opener, where the Mintos heavily outshot the visiting Contacts, Sunday afternoon’s game was a much tighter affair.
Prince Albert made the most of their offensive chances, scoring their four goals on only 22 shots. Sopotyk said the club’s offensive efficiency has been key to their early success.
“I think we’re shooting the puck real well, getting the pucks deep and just sticking to the game plan,” he explained. “Defensively, our goalie’s playing good, we’re getting pucks out and just doing our job.”
Defenceman Alex Moar opened the scoring for the Mintos roughly five minutes into the first period, with assists to Jake Koroluk and Josh Pillar, but the lead wouldn’t last long. Michael Flaman scored just 26 seconds later for the Contacts, tying the game up at one.
Sopotyk put the Mintos up for good early in the second when he scored on a penalty shot, then added another with 6:26 left to play in the period.
“We needed to go forward offensively and get some momentum going our way,” Sopotyk said. “That first goal and the penalty shot got our team going and I had some adrenaline going for myself for a second goal.”
Tanner Robin gave the visitors some additional insurance when he tallied at 14:12 with the lone assist to Moar.
The two teams are back on the ice for what could be the series finale at the Art Hauser Centre on Feb. 28. Puck drop is 7 p.m.
If the Contacts win, the two clubs will meet again on March 2 in Saskatoon.
@kerr_jas • jason.kerr@paherald.sk.ca
Raiders use four-goal second period to down Oil Kings
It looked like it was going to be a long night for the Prince Albert Raiders, but a four goal second period outburst was enough to ensure a perfect end to their three-game road swing.
The Raiders battled back from an early 2-0 deficit to defeat the Edmonton Oil Kings 5-4 in front of 9,723 fans at Rogers Place on Saturday. The win gave Prince Albert three straight wins on their trip through Alberta, and helped them claw their way back into the Eastern Conference playoff race.
“We needed it,” Raiders coach Marc Habscheid said after Saturday’s game. “It’s all about points right now. We needed the points and we swept the trip, and that’s what we wanted to do.”
Although the road-trip ended on a happy note, the outlook didn’t look good at the start of Saturday’s game.
The Oil Kings jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead before the match was six minutes old, thanks to tallies from Trey Fix-Wolansky and Conner McDonald. However, the Raiders found their legs in a wild second period that saw Prince Albert score their first three goals in a span of one minute and 27 seconds.
“We didn’t have urgency in the first and we paid for it,” Habscheid said. “Then the guys got urgent in the second and it made all the difference in the world.”
Vojtech Budik got the Raiders on the board roughly five minutes into the second period when he hammered a one-timer past Oil Kings goalie Josh Dechaine. Raider captain Curtis Miske tied things up a mere 34 seconds later, when he lifted a backhander over a sprawling Dechaine following some questionable Edmonton defending.
Brett Leason added to home team’s misery just 47 seconds afterwards, when he fired a quick wrist shot into the top left-hand corner to give the Raiders their first lead of the night.
Leason’s goal was his first of two on the evening, and extended his goal-scoring streak to six games.
Habscheid said the Calgary, Alta. product has started to gain some confidence, and that’s leading to more productivity on the scoresheet.
“I think he realizes that he can be a good player,” Habscheid explained. “He’s a quiet kid who just wants to fit in, and that’s okay, but he’s got a boatload of talent, and we don’t want him to fit in on the ice. We want him to dominate because he’s got a lot of God-given ability and he’s showing it now.”
Prince Albert’s first lead of the night didn’t last very long. Wyatt McLeod continued the offensive outburst when he scored during a delayed penalty just 28 seconds after Leason’s tally.
The Raiders jumped back in front with Leason’s second of the night at 12:04, but the Oil Kings responded with a power play goal from David Kope to send both teams into the second intermission knotted at four.
Parker Kelly scored the lone goal of the third period just two seconds after an Oil Kings penalty expired, giving the Raiders the win and ending a five game goal-scoring drought in the process. Kelly’s goal was his team leading seventh game-winner of the season.
Ian Scott stopped 25 of 29 shots for the Raiders to earn his 19th win of the season.
The victory means the Raiders move within two points of the idle Saskatoon Blades for the final wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference. The Blades have a chance to extend that gap when they take on the Moose Jaw Warriors in a Sunday afternoon matinee at the SaskTel Centre.
The Raiders are off until Tuesday when they host the Brandon Wheat Kings at the Art Hauser Centre. Puck drop is 7 p.m.
@kerr_jas • jason.kerr@paherald.sk.ca
Saved by special teams
The penalty killers were the difference as the Prince Albert Raiders downed the Red Deer Rebels 3-2 on Friday.
Despite giving the hometown Rebels eight chances on the power play, Prince Albert’s penalty killing unit only surrendering one goal, allowing the Raiders to pull within four points of Saskatoon for the final Eastern Conference wildcard spot.
After the game, Raiders coach Marc Habscheid praised his team for their ability to dig themselves out of trouble.
“Obviously our penalty killing unit was the difference tonight,” he said. “It was on point. We took too many penalties. Some of those penalties I wasn’t too sure of, but all in all, I thought the guys did a good job of killing them when they needed to.”
The Raiders came out flying and were rewarded less than a minute in. Fans were still nestling back into their seats when Kody McDonald tallied his 31st goal of the year a mere 14 seconds into the opening frame.
Jordy Stallard added to that lead with three minutes to go in the first period, when he whacked in a rebound following a Zach Hayes point shot to make it 2-0.
Habscheid said it was encouraging to see the Raiders set the tone so early in the contest.
“I thought our energy was good early and getting that goal on that first shift gave us a little bit of extra momentum,” he said. “It was good to get out to that start.”
However the Rebels quickly turned the tables in the second. Alex Morozoff, scored his fifth of the season to make it 2-1, and then a Josh Tarzwell shot took a few strange deflections before bouncing into the Raider goal to knot the game up at two.
The game seemed destined to head into the third period tied, but Brett Leason fired the eventual game winner past a screened Rebel netminder with 44 seconds left in the period.
Prince Albert Raiders goalie Ian Scott slammed the door the rest of the way, giving the Raiders a 3-2 victory, and a much needed two points in the Eastern Conference playoff race.
The Raiders sit four points back of the Saskatoon Blades, who lost 7-5 to the Regina Pats in Saskatoon on Friday.
Prince Albert is back in action on Saturday night in Edmonton against the Oil Kings. Puck drop is 8 p.m. CST.