Wheat Kings This Week: Alberta Road Swing Completes Wheat Kings’ November Schedule
The longest road trip of the season is already under the belt for the Brandon Wheat Kings, and that experience is about to be invaluable. Another road trip is ahead, and this one is just as tight in the scheduling department, perhaps even more so at the end.
Starting on Wednesday, November 22 and running through Sunday, November 26, the Wheat Kings will play four games in four cities in two provinces over five days. It’s the first swing through the central division this year for the black and gold, though they’ve met two of their opponents, the Medicine Hat Tigers and Edmonton Oil Kings, just this past weekend.
“Even when we reflect back on this weekend, the ups and downs we had, we played two really good periods out of the six, two poor periods, and two average periods out of the six,” said Wheat Kings head coach and GM Marty Murray. “That kind of gives you average results, one win, one loss. That’s what we’ve got to get out of our game. There are going to be parts of the game with ups and downs, but we’ve got to find some more consistency within our game.”
Edmonton is about an eleven-hour journey from Brandon, so the Wheat Kings are getting the longest bus ride of the trip out of the way early. From there, the Wheat Kings get their only day off on the trip before facing the Red Deer Rebels for the first time all season.
Red Deer is only the start of a three-in-three slog for the Wheat Kings, who move on to Medicine Hat afterwards for a rematch with the talented Tigers. Given the quick turnaround, the Wheat Kings will likely need every one of their 14 forwards to pitch in.
“We need minutes that are productive whether guys are playing 20 minutes or eight minutes,” said Murray. “Everybody needs to understand they can have an impact on the game. We’re going to need everybody with four games, in five days.”
Once the game in Medicine Hat is over, the Wheat Kings will have to endure one of the strangest aspects of their schedule this season. They’ll play again the very next night against their East Division rivals the Prince Albert Raiders, with a 6:00 Sunday evening start time.
“Everybody goes through it, this is the Western Hockey League,” Murray said. “It’s junior hockey. This trip, you look at it at the start of the year and you say, ‘Boy, this is going to be a grind’ and it is. We’re going to have monitor guys on the trip.”
This road trip will give way to a December full of home games at Westoba Place. CLICK HERE for a full list of games and to grab your tickets.
