The Cochrane Chaos is standing on their last legs in the Alberta Junior Female Hockey League (AJFHL) playoffs after dropping the first two games to the Sherwood Park Steele in a best-of-five championship series on March 17 and 18.
Game 1 of the series took place on St. Patrick’s Day, yet there was no luck involved for Cochrane, as the Chaos dropped a 3-2 decision. It was a hard fought game by both teams, which was scoreless after the first period. The Steele would score first midway through the second frame, but Cochrane would knot the score at one apiece when Audrey Buston took a pass from Summer Gibbons and fired it past the Sherwood Park goaltender.
The tie game was short-lived when the Steele regained the lead just 27 seconds after Cochrane had tied it, which would remain the score until the final minute of the third period.
With the Chaos buzzing to find the equalizer, Breanna Martin, who was the team’s leading scorer throughout the regular season took a cross-ice pass from Kaylin Herman and managed to beat the Steele goaltender on the stick side to send the game into overtime. Sherwood Park would score seven minutes into the extra frame to end the game and give the visitors a 1-0 series lead.
Both goaltenders faced more than 30 shots each and were solid on the evening. Megan Parkyn who was been fantastic over the course of the regular season and playoffs, stopped 37 of the 40 shots she was faced with.
Game 2 took place the following afternoon, and it was much of the same type of intensity from both teams as two of the top teams in the league went at it from start to finish. Sherwood Park would score in the second period, and would hold down the fort for the remainder of the game to win the game 1-0 and go up by two games in the championship series and will have a chance to close out the series at home in Game 3.
“We have to stay loose and play our game,” Chaos head coach Derek Loomer said.
“There will be some urgency when your back is against the wall like ours is right now, but I’m sure the players will respond.”
It has been a long time since the Chaos have lost back-to-back contests, with it only happening once over the course of the season on Oct. 14 and 15 when the team dropped a 5-4 decision to the Saskatchewan Fury, followed up for a 4-2 defeat at the hands of Sherwood Park.
Loomer knows he and his team currently isn’t in the best position for success, but the Cochrane bench boss said this series is far from over and done with.
“Sherwood Park didn’t do anything we didn’t expect them to do. I thought the weekend could have just as easily ended with us being up two-nothing,” Loomer said.
“It was just two very competitive teams that have to battle for every goal. We’ve won 10 (games in a row) before which helps. We’ve had long win streaks twice over the course of the season so that helps us see what we’re capable of. But we need to focus on the next game first before we look towards other games in the series.”
The Chaos will hit the road for potentially the next two games of the series, with Game 3 going March 23 in Ardorssan and Game 4 will be the following night at the Strathcona Olympiette Center.
