Meota Combines take on the Perdue Pirates Thursday night at 8 p.m. (file photo/battlefordsNOW staff)

By Keaton Brown

Best Foot Forward

Opening game of Meota Combines SPHL season at Civic Center Thursday night

Nov 28, 2019 | 2:00 PM

The red hot North Stars may be on the road for the next few days but that does not mean the Civic Centre will be without exciting hockey.

Tonight at 8 p.m. the Meota Combines will take on the Perdue Pirates in a Saskatchewan Prairie Hockey League (SPHL) showdown.

The SPHL was founded in the summer of 2010 by a group of teams dedicated to providing quality hockey in small town Saskatchewan

Their goal was and continues to be to create, promote and maintain a ‘working man’s league.’

This will be Meota’s first game of the season and they will be looking to get off to a good start with a solid effort tonight.

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Aaron Cadrin, Manager and player for the Combines, said that they owned the season series against Perdue last year but they will not be taking the team lightly.

“We beat them pretty bad both games last year but they have a pretty good squad this year by the looks of it,” he said. “They only lost to Battleford 5-4 and Battleford won the whole thing last year and have a similar squad. I think they picked up some pretty good junior players so it should be a pretty good game.”

Cadrin said they have a fairly strong team this year with a lot of returning players from their championship season so they will have high expectations for the season.

“The team we got this year looks pretty similar to the team we had two years ago when we won the league so we’ll have some high expectations for the year,” he said. “We got a lot of veterans coming back and some new young guys coming up that should help make a difference. Blake Tatchell is coming back as well and he was the best player in the league two years ago so hopefully that helps us get over the hump.”

Cadrin said their game tonight will be the perfect way to spend a Thursday evening in the Battlefords.

“It is Thursday night so there should not be too much else going on. We got the beer gardens open upstairs and we’ll have some local beer there from the armory and it should be a pretty good game here tonight,” he said.

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Keaton.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow