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WHL Brandon Wheat Kings

Teddies Fly in Win over Regina

December 12, 2021 - Western Hockey League (WHL)
Brandon Wheat Kings News Release


Brandon, MB - The Brandon Wheat Kings set a new record on Saturday night, as Brett Hyland scored 0:20 into the hockey game, sending the teddy bears flying in the fastest teddy goal in franchise history.

Hundreds of people were still filing into the arena, when Hyland snapped the first shot of the game over the glove of Matthew Keiper to send the crowd into a frenzy. According to Brandon Sun archives, the fastest teddy bear goal prior to tonight was Dec. 13, 2013 when Rene Hunter scored 0:29 into the first period in a 6-5 OT loss to Kelowna.

"I really liked the start of the game," said Head Coach Don MacGillivray. "I liked our first period and how we built a good lead. The Pats kept it close tonight, credit them. We had two big kills in the third. Its an important win, we were running out of gas but we did what we needed to do."

The Wheat Kings scored twice more before the midway point of the first period to build a 3-0 lead, Nolan Ritchie and Chad Nychuk had the goals as it looked like the Wheat Kings were about to run away with it. However, the Pats had a different idea.

With just 0:44 seconds left in the period, Logan Nijhoff gave Regina some life and cut the lead to two.

Nate Danielson would score the eventual game winner early in the third, but the Pats fought back to within one with goals from Braxton Whitehead and Cole Dubinsky.

With the goalie pulled late, Carson Bjarnason and the Wheat Kings locked down the win,blocking several shots and not allowing the Pats to draw even. Bjarnason finished the night with 28 saves, including all 15 he faced in the third period.

The win caps of an impressive 5-2-0-1 run over the course of an eight game in eleven day stretch for the Wheat Kings, who will now get some much needed rest ahead of the pre-Christmas weekend finale with Winnipeg.

"We're 5-2-0-1 in our last eight games with all the travel and everything this is an impressive run for us... We had great crowd tonight and you could tell that our guys were feeding off it. In the first period, everytime we put a good shift together the crowd was behind us and it really helped in this one."

4,698 fans packed into Westoba Place on Saturday, the largest crowd of the season and the biggest crowd since February 7th, 2020 when 4,145 watched Brandon fall 3-2 to Medicine Hat in a shootout.

Brandon wraps up the first half of the WHL season this weekend, with a home and home vs the Winnipeg ICE. It all starts on Friday night at Westoba Place.

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