Raiders Blanked in Opener

The Swift Current Kabos Bantam AA Raiders opened their season a little snake bitten as they fell 2-0 to Estevan on Saturday.

"The first two periods we were right there with them," said Raiders Coach Kent Woods. "Get a bounce either way and it goes the other way."

Kent Woods Interview"Third period we maybe ran out of gas. Guys tried to do the little things themselves instead of using each other. Getting pucks deep at the blue line we weren't doing a very good job of it. If you're always creating turnovers and having to back check you're going to tire out pretty quickly."

The Raiders felt like they were a little behind where other teams are at so far.

"We get behind the eight ball a lot because everybody starts earlier than us," Woods said. "The fact that we've only really had two practices as a team and you haven't really had a chance to work a whole lot on your systems or on your power play."

"Stuff like that's going to come. It's too bad we can't get started sooner so we can be at everybody's pace quicker."

He is anticipating a lot of close hockey games this season.

"We're hoping we're in every hockey game," Woods said. "These guys are going to come and we're going to compete... we're going to be in them now we've just got to find a way to be on the other end of them."

The Raiders will have a week of practice before two more home games next weekend when they host the Sask Valley Vipers on Saturday night and Weyburn on Sunday morning.