The Jasper Homes Hounds are in a familiar position this weekend.
The midget AA hockey team hosts the Red Deer Elks at 8 p.m. tonight at the Kinplex to kick off a best-of-three South Central Alberta Hockey League finals series that’s a repeat of last year.
The Hounds swept that series en route to a provincial title. So you can bet Red Deer will be looking for some redemption.
The series moves to Red Deer for Game 2 Saturday. If needed, the deciding third game would be Sunday, 2:15 p.m. at the Kinplex.
Medicine Hat and Red Deer played just once this season, a 6-0 Hounds win on home ice Nov. 30. The Hat side also had a slightly better record, at 29-6-4 three points ahead of the 28-8-3 Elks.
What Red Deer does have on Medicine Hat is the top-two scorers in the SCAHL. Carter Bettenson had 79 points (20 goals, 59 assists) in 38 games, while linemate Eric Melnyk had 77 points (34 goals, 43 assists) in 39 games.
No Hat player cracked the top-10, with Cameron Hall’s 48 points (22 goals, 26 assists) in 39 games good for 11th. However, Nate Hoffman (2.29 goals against average, .920 save percentage) had the league’s second-best goals against average, slightly better than Red Deer’s Zaiden Hansen (2.55 GAA, .920 SV).
The series winner heads to Calgary at the end of the month for provincials.
