Thursday the St. Albert premier men’s rugby team battles the rough and tumble Nor’Westers in the Alberta Cup fixtures.
Kickoff is 7 p.m. at the Nor’Westers Fields, 711-50 St. (east from the corner of Ellerslie Road and 50 St.).
St. Albert’s first 15 side (5-2-1, six bonus points) and the Nor’Westers (5-3-1, four BP) rank the near the top of the premier table with the Calgary Hornets (6-2, eight BP) and Calgary Irish (5-2, five BP).
Last month the defending Labatt’s Cup provincial champions grinded out a hard-fought 20-7 decision against the Nor’Westers in St. Albert.
The St. Albert Crude is hosting the junior B Tier I provincial championship in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League this weekend but was unsuccessful in qualifying for the four-team tournament at Akinsdale Arena.
The Red Deer Rampage and Manitoba Blizzard of Winnipeg are the north division reps and the Saskatchewan SWAT of Saskatoon and Calgary Chill are the south division teams.
The Rampage and Chill are competing to see who finishes higher at provincials for a berth at the seven-team Founders’ Cup nationals, hosted by the Calgary Mountaineers, Aug. 17 to 23 at Max Bell Arena.
The Blizzard and SWAT have automatic berths at nationals as out-of-province teams.
THE RMLL voted to go to a Memorial Cup style format for provincials at the 2013 annual general meeting and it was implemented in 2014. The Rampage finished first, the Chill placed second and the Mountaineers were third.
Game times are 6 and 9 p.m. Friday; 9, noon, 6 and 9 p.m. Saturday; 3 p.m. (semifinal: second place vs. third place) Sunday; and 1 p.m. (final: first place vs. semifinal winner) Monday.
Visit www.rockymountainlax.com for the schedule.
Tickets are $7 for a single game, $20 for a Saturday pass and $40 for a tournament pass.
This year’s provincial qualifier for the Crude (8-12) ended with a three-game sweep by the Rampage (14-5-1) in the best-of-five north semifinals. Scores were 10-6 and 6-3 in Red Deer and 5-3 in St. Albert.
The loss at home last weekend left the Crude winless in six games against the Rampage this season and the average margin of defeat was 2.3 goals.
Cam Ellingson, Ben Holowaty and Dyllan Dokken scored in game three.
Crude netminder Cory Evans of the Crude was outstanding in all three playoff games in his last year of junior eligibility.
