After a day off the Bombers resume their 4 game in 5 night road trip at beautiful Affinity Place in Estevan tonight.
If you ever get a chance to watch a game in Estevan I highly reccomend it. It might be the nicest Junior A facility I have ever seen that includes bucket seats, sky boxes and a state of the art score clock complete with replays.
Estevan also do the lazer light show before every game and run lots of cool contests. Estevan gets it right and that is why they seem to make money every year, while most other teams would be lucky to just break even.
Chances are Mike Reagan is not interested in any of the promotions the Bruins will be running tonight, he just needs to win a hockey game.
Coming in to tonight the Bombers are 1-1 on the trip with a thrilling 2-1 shoot out win over Humboldt on Tuesday and a 5-2 set back to Notre Dame on Wednesday. A bad first period in which the Bombers gave up 4 goals cost them the game against the Hounds.
Flin Flon still has a chance to do well on this trip and if they can pick up points tonight and tomorrow, you would think that would really help the confidence level.
It won't be easy as the Bombers only have 2 road wins on the season and Estevan only has 1 home loss so far. Saying that the one thing I have come to realize covering this league for the past 18 years is anyone can beat anyone on a given night. When you least expect it teams often surprise you.
Entering tonight the Bombers are: 4-8-0-3 and sit in the bottom of the Sherwood Division, 2 points behind Laronge with 2 games in hand.
The Bruins are second in the Viterra at : 7-5-0-1, 6 points behind the front running Weyburn Red Wings who the Bombers will face tomorrow.
This will be the first meeting of the season between these two teams with the Bruins winning the season series last year taking 3 out of 4 games, including both games at the Whitney Forum.
Both teams struggle to put the puck in the net with Flin Flon sitting 11th overall with just 43 goals in 15 games, while the Bruins have scored 48 times in 13 games which has them ranked 5th.
Estevan has only one player in the top 20 in league scoring which is Darcy Deroose who has 16 points in 11 games. The Bombers do not have a player in the top 20 and their leading scorer is Brandon Switzer who has 15 points in 14 games. Joel Kocur leads the team in goals with 9.
Secondary scoring will be huge for both these teams, and someone you don't even expect may step up and be the hero. If you are Mike Reagan the big question is who will start in goal tonight?
Brenden Newton was incredible against Humboldt stopping 36 out of 37 Bronco shots on Tuesday, only to be pulled after letting in 3 goals on 8 shots the next night in Wilcox. Robidoux came in and stopped 18 out of 20 shots in relief.
My guess is Robidoux will get the call tonight, as he has been able to play pretty well in starts after coming off the bench the game before, but we will have to see.
It is a busy night in the SJHL with 10 of the league's 12 teams seeing action including Notre Dame in Melville, Melfort at Nipawin, Battleford at Weyburn and Humboldt at Yorkton.
