Broncos Hitmen
The teams warming up at the Scotiabank Saddledome

It only took 14 seconds for Calgary to set the tone in what turned into a blowout victory over the Swift Current Broncos.

Redel Fazleev converted a Travis Sanheim pass just 14 seconds into the first period to open the flood gates in what would turn into a 7-0 Hitmen win on Friday night.

“Obviously a very disappointing effort,” said Broncos associate coach Josh Dixon. “Right from the first shift our lack of intensity, our lack of compete, Calgary was in almost another league from us tonight. Very disappointed.”

The Broncos were banged up already heading into the game and it got worse. After recently adding forwards Coda Gordon and Carter Rigby to a growing injured list, World Junior defenceman Dillon Heatherington left Friday's game with an upper body injury in the first period.

“At the end of the day that's just an excuse,” Dixon said. “That's an opportunity for players to step up with Rigby and Gordon out of the lineup. We've been able to play... without those two and played extremely well (last weekend). We had good starts, we competed, we executed the details of the game... and tonight none of those things were apparent.”

Dixon noted they also had no excuse for their lack of energy against the Hitmen.

“There's no reason not to have any energy this is the start of the trip,” he noted. “We had a week of practice we didn't have to play any game this week. There's no excuse for it.”

Landon Bow allowed 3 goals on 13 shots in the first period before giving way to Travis Child. He stopped 25 of the 29 shots he faced.

Mack Shield stopped all 24 Swift Current shots to earn the shutout.

The Broncos are in Cranbrook to play the Kootenay Ice on Saturday night. You can hear the game on The Eagle 94.1 FM starting with our pre-game show at 7:30pm.