Peewee Suns awash in sea of Red

It will continue to be a work in progress in the early going of the South Central Alberta Hockey League regular season for the Taber peewee “AA” Golden Suns.

Taber peewee “AA” Golden Suns suffered a 10-4 loss at the hands of Lethbridge Hurricanes Red at the Taber Arena over the weekend.

Josh Conley, Derrien Tonin, Mason Sande and Dylan Nevil all scored for the Suns. Ryden Rempel chipped in three assists with Nevil getting two helpers and Sande one. Carl Tetachuk faced 41 shots in net for the loss.

“They are definitely a team that has a lot more second years playing together, being well organized and definitely aggressive,” said Jason Beckett, head coach of the Taber peewee “AA” Golden Suns of the opposition.

“They came at us quite strong, they were quite tenacious. They had obviously been playing together longer than us.”

Moving forward, Beckett could still draw on positives he saw in the game as the team moves forward to its second weekend of regular season SCAHL play.

“The establishment of D-zone coverage, even though we gave up a lot of stuff in tight, for the most part we attempted to play our system which is to control the middle of the ice,” said Beckett. “We had some pretty good personal performances from players which was nice. We had flashes of some great skill and talent and hockey sense that we can build on.”

With only three returning players, some second-year peewees where it’s their first year of “AA” hockey and eligible players from all over the year, Beckett admits its going to take some time to build the overall chemistry.

“Coming off of two (exhibition) games against Brooks where we just dominated, our schedule has gotten quite hard for the beginning of the year. Our confidence is something we are going to have to build carefully because we are going to be quite challenged and we have to respond in every game,” said Beckett.

“Hopefully the kids will take the positives that we share and not necessarily focus on the result. We are a new group all over the place, a lot of young guys. We do have a longer building process than we anticipated, but Lethbridge is a good sense of where we need to be and I definitely think our guys can get there.”

Taber peewee “AA” Golden Suns host Bow Valley Timberwolves on Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Taber Arena.