The Niverville Nighthawks snapped a very long losing streak on Sunday afternoon at the CRRC with a monumental 7–3 victory over the Winnipeg Freeze. With the win, the Nighthawks stay in fourth place in the MJHL’s East Division with a record of 24–22–4.
The teams opened the game by trading goals throughout the first and second period in a very back-and-forth affair. Deadlocked at 3–3, the Nighthawks exploded in the third period with four goals to pull away and earn the 7–3 win.
Brendan Bottem led the charge with a pair of goals for Niverville, while Colin Whaley, Alex Walicki, Nathan Brown, Josh Mettimano, and Caleb Lepitre scored the other goals.
Raiden LeGall stopped 18 shots in goal.
Head coach Dwight Hirst was pleased with his team’s performance in this first win since being named the interim coach.
“It was nice to put some pucks on the net. For a team that has been struggling for offence, it was great to see that open up,” said Hirst. “But for that to happen, we needed to be good in our neutral zone, as that drives us north on the attack again.”
Although the Winnipeg Freeze occupy last place in the MJHL, the Nighthawks are just happy to have snapped their losing streak and hope that getting the feel for winning again can give them a spark for the remainder of the regular season.
“They may have fewer points, but Winnipeg competes very hard,” said Hirst. “The thing with teams lower in the standings is they learn to play defence very well. We just needed to keep positive and upbeat with our attack and eventually the offensive portion will come alive.”
The Nighthawks are back in action with a road game on February 27 against the Winnipeg Blues. The puck drops at 7:30 p.m.
