Skyhawks head coach Darren Turcotte talks with BayToday.ca reporter Steve Freyer while showing off his new hairdo. Turcotte promised to allow the players to give him a Mohawk if they won their opening round series against the Abitibi Eskimos.
Skyhawks head coach Darren Turcotte talks with BayToday.ca reporter Steve Freyer while showing off his new hairdo. Turcotte promised to allow the players to give him a Mohawk if they won their opening round series against the Abitibi Eskimos. Photo by Chris Dawson.
Skyhawks head coach Darren Turcotte had his hair cut into a Mohawk style, to match what his players have been sporting after North Bay’s series clinching 7-0 slaughtering of the Abitibi Eskimos Wednesday night. Perhaps he should tell his players he’ll shave it all off and go completely bald as extra incentive for them going into their second round, best of seven semi-final series against the #1 seed Soo Indians Saturday night. Either way Turcotte believes his team’s in for a tough series against the defensive minded Soo club, who allowed the fewest goals against during the regular season.
“It’ll be playoff hockey, there will be some finesse in there and some good battles along the way,” Turcotte said of the upcoming playoff series, before the teams practice on Friday. “Anytime you play a team seven consecutive times there’s going to be battles and bad blood, and you just have to roll with that, and if that never comes up we’ll have to be ready to go the other way.”
The two teams squared off against each other eight times during the regular season, with the Indians taking five of those games, including the last three and outscored the Skyhawks 31-23 in the process. But entering the series with the hottest goalie in the playoffs in Ian Wilson, Skyhawks forward Nathan Hewitt says that it’s a bonus having that much confidence in their goaltender.
“Ian has been playing great. I’d probably give him the title of MVP for the series (Abitibi) for sure. It’s nice to know that we have a guy back there that will come up big every time we need him,” the injured Hewitt said.
The “upper body injury” that has kept Hewitt sidelined for North Bay’s previous three games against Abitibi, will keep him out of the lineup for the first couple matches with the Soo.
“I might make the trip, but I don’t think I’ll be in the lineup,” Hewitt said of the first two games in Michigan. “I can see myself playing in the series maybe tomorrow night or Sunday afternoon, but more than likely in game three and four,” Hewitt added.
Although Hewitt says he doesn’t expect to play in the beginning of the series, he thinks his team has a good shot at upsetting the Indians.
“The way we’ve been playing the past six games against Abitibi, you know a couple mental breakdowns cost us a couple loses in that series, but overall I think our team is playing awesome and I think if we keep playing the same way we have a good chance at beating them,” Hewitt explained.
While North Bay was battling it out with Abitibi in round one, the Soo Indians were granted a first round bye and haven’t played since March 10. Having that long break like the Soo has of playing at a high level can cause a team to be rusty and might give the Skyhawks a slight edge, but Turcotte doesn’t see it that way.
“There’s positive’s and negative’s of having time off. They could come out a bit rusty, but they’re obviously going to come out well rested also, so there’s no advantage or disadvantage, we just have to go in there…. You know we’re starting with two on the road this series so we’ll have to see Monday,” Turcotte said.
Playing defense has been the Indians strong point this year, as they were tops in the league in goals against, and being the league’s third highest scoring team doesn’t hurt the number one seed either. But according to Turcotte, not many changes need to be made from the way the Skyhawks played in round one against the Eskimos for success in round two against the Indians. Pointing out his team has played well defensively as well.
“Just commitment to defense, we stressed that in the first round against Abitibi and we’re going to continue to stress it in the second round. We just have to battle, get in front of any shot that comes at our net and hopefully our defenseman and our forwards continue to do that,” Turcotte expressed.
The Skyhawks travel to Soo Michigan for the first two games of the semi-final series at Big Bear Arena, with game one coming tonight at 7:00p.m. Games three and four will be held at Memorial Gardens on Thursday March 29 and Friday March 30, both games seeing a 7:30p.m start.
