Thursday the St. Albert Sabres skate into the new year against the Fort Saskatchewan Rangers in the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League.
Faceoff is 7 p.m. at Akinsdale Arena.
The Sabres (4-13-6) are six points back of the fourth and last playoff spot in the nitro north division.
The bantams are 1-1-2 with Norm Lacombe as their new head coach.
The Sabres are also gearing up for the 16-team John Reid Memorial Tournament. The 42-game schedule starts Jan. 17 at 8 a.m. and ends with the Jan. 20 final at 2 p.m. All the games except one will be staged at Servus Credit Union Place.
The Sabres will play the Pursuit of Excellence Academy of Kelowna, Winnipeg Monarchs and the Calgary Bisons in the Progressive Home Warranty division.
See page 33 for the complete schedule.
The only St. Albert team to win the tournament was the 1983 Territorial Leasing Sabres.
The 35th annual invitational tournament is hosted by the Sabres and the St. Albert Raiders Hockey Club.
Visit www.johnreidmemorial.com for more information.
The St. Albert Merchants and Morinville Jets resume play this weekend in the Capital Junior B Hockey League.
The Merchants are in action Friday against the North Edmonton Red Wings (15-9-1) at 8 p.m. at Londonderry Arena and Sunday against the Stony Plain Flyers (2-23) at 8 p.m. at Akinsdale Arena.
Sunday the Jets host the defending champion Spruce Grove Regals (20-4-3) at 6:45 p.m. at the Ray McDonald Sports Centre.
In the west division the Merchants (15-8-3) share second place and the Jets (13-11) are in fifth place.
In December the Merchants were 3-2-1 and the Jets fell to 2-3.
The last game between the rival clubs was a penalty-filled 7-6 win by the Merchants before the Christmas break in Morinville. Dan Rombough’s power-play goal with 11 seconds remaining in regulation time was the game winner. It was the fifth goal of the night by the Merchants with the man advantage.
The Merchants lead the season series 2-1. The next tilt is Feb. 1 in St. Albert.
The next game for the St. Albert Raiders in the Alberta Major Bantam Female Hockey League is Sunday versus the Red Deer Chiefs.
Puck drop is 1:30 p.m. at Northstar Hyundai Arena.
Last month the Raiders won two and lost two on home ice.
The Raiders (9-5-1) are the No. 1 team in the north division and Red Deer (10-4-2) is fourth in the south standings.
Jaime Kidd and Jamie Jones lead the Raiders in points with 13. Kidd has also scored a team-high nine goals in 13 games.
Hannah Clark (5-1-1) is the league’s top netminder with a 1.43 GAA.
