The South East Prairie Thunder will play their first of two preliminary round games Monday against the Bethune Bulldogs at the 2018 Allan Cup in Rosetown, Saskatchewan.

"It's certainly exciting," said Thunder coach Dustin Hughes. "We had good series to book our ticket to the Allan Cup. We've been preparing a little bit. We'll get a couple of skates in this weekend before we head out to Rosetown."

South East defeated the Ile des Chenes North Stars 4-2, 5-3 and 6-3 in the best-of-five series for the Pattison Cup.

"We obviously got good goaltending with Steve Christie coming back for another year," said coach Hughes. "We've got a really solid defense corps and up front we've got some returning guys like Ty Dittmer and Del Cowan. Then we've also got some younger guys coming in like the younger brothers of Riley Dudar who played on the team for awhile."

The Prairie Thunder will also meet the Elsipogtog Hawks on Tuesday.

The top team in each of the two pools will earn a bye to the semifinals.

South East won the Allan Cup in 2012 in Lloydminster and 2015 in Clarenville.

The Prairie Thunder lost the final in 2009 & 2016, both in Steinbach.

Coach Hughes feels the experience his team has playing for the National Senior AAA Hockey Championship eight of the past nine years is important.

"I think in this type of situation it's huge because we don't play together all year round like some of the teams that we'll be facing so just that fact that we do have a number of guys that have been in this environment and been in this situation hopefully will help us."

Pool two consists of the Lacombe Generals, Stoney Creek Generals and host Rosetown Redwings.


photo courtesy Shirley Kornelsen