By JAMIE SHANKS of the Weyburn Review
It was cold, cold, cold outside but the visiting Yorkton Terriers found a warm welcome ready for them at the Weyburn Colosseum on Friday night.
The Terriers trailed 2-0 and 4-0 at the intermissions and despite a late effort wound up on the losing end of a 5-2 final as the vengeful Weyburn Red Wings gave themselves and 610 of their fans an early Christmas present.
"I thought we played an extremely good hockey game and we had chances to score some more goals, too. We had some golden opportunities," head coach Dwight McMillan said following Weyburn's first win over Yorkton this season.
"Yorkton's beaten us twice in overtime. We deserve better against them because we can play against them."
His team did that on Friday, dominating the first two periods before staving off a potential Yorkton comeback in the third. It was just the latest victory in a string of recent successes for the Wings, who have won seven of their last 10 games.
"We've had a pretty good December," McMillan said. "It's nice to start playing good at Christmas and go home on a happy note."
All three of their losses were on the road, and two of those - one in Humboldt, the other in Yorkton - came in OT. The third was an 8-3 trouncing from the Bruins on Dec. 16 which McMillan promptly shrugged off. "We were working too hard in Estevan and got running all over the place," he said.
If anyone could be accused of working too hard, it's defenceman Brad Denis. The Iron Horse picked up a pair of assists while appearing in his 201st consecutive game for the Red Wings on Friday. Ryan Rome had two assists as well while Christian Cote, Josh Dobbyn, Jacob Gradwell and Caley Cox all put the puck past Yorkton's netminder Dennis Bassett, who faced a total of 40 shots from his hosts.
Rome is a recent defensive acquisition by the Wings, who have been doing some Christmas shopping during the past few weeks with a series of trades.
"I think the trades helped us," McMillan said. "It's a tough South Division. There are great teams down here."
One look at the standings makes it clear: if the sixth-place Wings were in the North Division, their 41 points would actually be good for third place. Cox, who scored twice on Friday, agreed the pressure is on.
"We're in a tough division and the more momentum we can get, the better," he said. "We've worked on a lot of things in practice and we brought them here tonight."
One thing they didn't bring was Sergei Sinicin, who is gone until the first week of January while participating in the Junior B World Hockey championships in Europe. As a result he will likely miss Weyburn's next game after the holidays - a New Year's Day clash with the league-leading Bruins at 4 p.m. in Estevan.
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