Surrey, B.C. – The Surrey Eagles started the pre-season ironing out the kinks and working through some unlucky bounces. As the pre-season carried on, the team started to really find their game and just weren’t rewarded. This weekend they were able to rattle off 3 straight wins, capped off with a strong 4-1 win over the Langley Rivermen. Tonight’s win was the exclamation point on a pre-season which has seen a young Eagles team improve rapidly since the beginning of training camp in mid September.
The story of the game tonight was Buddy Johnson, who scored a hat-trick with every goal coming on the power-play. When asked about the longest tenured White Rock native, head coach Cam Keith noted it was nice to see him rewarded for a strong pre-season. “I felt Buddy’s been doing it all exhibition. Tonight was a bit of karma, some of the shots he should’ve scored found the net and he scored some easy tap ins by being in the right position. Buddy is a player who goes to the dirty areas right in front of the net and he got rewarded tonight, and that’s what we’re going to depend on him to be. He’s going to be our net front guy who’s putting up screens and using his body to take the eyes away from the goalie and bang home some 2nd chance opportunities.”
While Buddy was the 1st star, the Eagles as a whole played their best game of the pre-season. Surrey limited Langley to just 11 shots through 2 periods, and held the lead in the shot column by a 33-25 total. Prazma won his 2nd straight start in 2 nights, making 24 saves in the win. Jacob Bonkowski scored the other goal for the Eagles.
Cam Keith believed tonight was a culmination of the work his team put in throughout the pre-season. “I’m proud of how we finished with 3 games in 3 nights. I thought we controlled the game, our defensive positioning was on point, and when we needed a big save from Prazma he came through. All those little points we’ve touched on before, getting the systems dialled in, getting guys to play the right way, all of those boxes were checked tonight in the win.”
Through the early adversity and all the losses, it was clear the Eagles were playing the game the way the coaching staff intended. Tonight, it resulted in a nearly flawless performance as the Eagles capped off their pre-season with a great win. “It’s positive momentum built off of not getting results early, which allowed us to correct some mistakes and build our game from the ground up. We’ve slowly gotten to a point where our game is complete rather than believing in false results. We’ve been able to win the right way, and we couldn’t be happier with the way our pre-season has gone.”
The Eagles will look to carry their pre-season momentum into their regular season home opener on Friday, October 8th against the Coquitlam Express. A reminder to all fans who wish to attend the game proof of vaccination and ID will be necessary to enter the building. Anyone looking to buy their tickets can click here!
If you can’t make the game on Friday, you can watch the Telus Surrey Eagles broadcast live on BCHL TV (Powered by HockeyTV) and mixer.com/eaglesbchl.
