John MacNeil
Daily Herald
Even in a pre-season context, the Prince Albert Raiders and Saskatoon Blades kept their ongoing feud alive and well during a Western Hockey League exhibition game Saturday night at Warman.
While the Blades deserved full marks for their 5-2 victory close to their Saskatoon home, it was another spirited affair between the rivals, especially after the Raiders recovered from a slow start.
Calgary-area buddies Riley Boychuk of Prince Albert and Cooper Williams of Saskatoon were in the thick of things all night. They weren’t surprised that the Highway 11 rivalry picked up where it left off last spring when the Raiders swept the Blades in the playoffs.
“No, we never forget it,” Boychuk said of the teams’ head-to-head clashes. “Playoffs last year, pre-season games here, it’s always a battle, it’s always fun. And I know it’s always fun for the fans. So, that’ll never change.”
The sting of their playoff defeat gave the Blades even more incentive this past weekend, regardless of it being pre-season hockey with many new faces and prospects on both sides.
“It’s always fun playing against them,” Williams said of the Raiders. “Always good beating them. No better team in the league to beat than them.”
Williams was a catalyst in the Saskatoon win, mixing his skill and grit all game long, while scoring a goal and assisting on two others.
“Yeah, going into games with the mindset that it’s already regular season, playing every shift like that,” said Williams, a fifth-round selection of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the NHL draft last June.
“Just being able to play against a (Raiders) team like that, where we’re going to see them a lot this year. We’re going to play them eight more times (in regular-season action). So, just going out there, trying to send a message.”
Williams is from Calgary, while Boychuk resides in nearby Cochrane, so the 18-year-old forwards know each other well from playing against each other for years before they reached the WHL.
“The first time I played against him was in U15, and we’ve grown up ever since then playing against each other,” Williams said of Boychuk. “Now, he’s on P.A. and I’m on the Blades, so it’s good to play against each other a lot.
“I see him around and we’re buddies away from the rink, but when it comes to here, we’re enemies, like P.A. and the Blades are.”
That animosity was on full display Saturday as those otherwise friends were well-engaged in the storied rivalry. Boychuk and Williams jostled with each other everywhere from the faceoff circle to the front of the net and along the boards. They received offsetting roughing penalties in the third period as the undercard on a fight between highly touted 16-year-old forwards Kain Martinuik of the Blades and Athens Shingoose of the Raiders.
“Yeah, we’re just competitors,” Boychuk said about his battles with Williams. “I know he’s a competitor, I know I’m a competitor. There are no friends (on the ice), no matter who the friends are across the league. I’m playing for my team and the only friends I’ve got out there are the guys wearing green.”
Boychuk recalled he and Williams have been playing against each other since they were 14 years old.
“We were both on good teams,” he said of their minor hockey days. “We had our battles then. Our first year, we played (his Calgary team) in the second round of playoffs, when I was playing U15. The next year, we played them in the provincial final — a close game — we ended up winning that one.
“We’ve never really been on the same team, but we’ve been around each other in the summer, because we’re so close and we see each other around. We talk, we’re good friends. You get to know each other in the summer, but once it comes to here, it’s all business. No friends out there, especially P.A. (versus) Saskatoon, it’s a big rivalry.”
Facing an older lineup than they did Friday night in Prince Albert for a 5-3 victory over the Moose Jaw Warriors, the Raiders fell behind the Blades early Saturday and never got back on track, despite improvements in the final period.
Boychuk, warming up for his Calgary Flames’ training camp, was among six regulars from last season’s WHL finalists in Prince Albert’s lineup Saturday.
“Yeah, it’s pre-season, but we’re building,” he said. “We’re building for the regular season. It doesn’t matter if we’re in camp, it’s an exhibition game, it’s a regular-season game, or we’re in playoffs, we’re still trying to play the Raider way. I think sometimes we got away from it, and that’s when things didn’t go well for us on the scoreboard. But when we stuck to it, we had some good moments where we showed pressure.
“We didn’t get as much shots as we wanted at the start. Then, we started shooting the puck and it started to go (better). There were some good moments there, for us, and some good details and habits to build on.”
Along with Williams’ three-point game, Saskatoon received two power-play goals and an assist from Martensville’s Kazden Mathies. The Blades also got goals from Martinuik and Jaggar John, and two assists from defenceman Brayden Klimpke. John made it 5-0 late in the second period. The final three minutes of the second were tacked onto the start of the third period, after the rink crew repaired a stanchion near the Zamboni exit.
Ben Harvey, a 17-year-old forward, scored a goal and assisted on Prince Albert’s other tally, which came from 18-year-old defenceman Darius Hordal. Both players are from Edmonton. Raiders’ sophomore Harvey, who connected with five minutes left in the third period, was finally rewarded after he came close to scoring on back-to-back flashy plays. Hordal continued his strong pre-season as he pushes for a roster spot.
Goaltenders auditioning for jobs split the action as Taye Timmerman and Max Hartel tended Saskatoon’s net and Brady Holtvogt and Chase Kettles were between Prince Albert’s pipes. The Blades outshot the Raiders 36-29, including a 26-14 margin through two periods.
Pre-season play continues Thursday when the Blades visit the Raiders for a 7 p.m. game at the Art Hauser Centre.
