Brayden Klimosko picked up his 200th career victory and secured his first as his hometown’s head coach in the Humboldt Broncos’ season opening 6-3 victory over the Notre Dame Hounds.
Veteran leadership helped propel the Broncos’ offence as a crowd of 1000 strong welcomed regular season hockey back to the Elgar Petersen Arena. Maddox Amaral, Gabriel Filion, and Boris Kofman all finished with 3 points on the night.
Michael Dowdall picked up his first career goal, while Kye Benoche and Tre Fouquette secured their first career point as a Humboldt Bronco.
The Broncos scored the first three goals of the game (Filion, Dowdall, Amaral) to open a 3-0 lead until late in the first period when Hounds’ rookie, Ian Bours fired home his first of two goals.
Season opening structural nerves seemed to be evident on both sides throughout as mistakes led to a high percentage of the nine combined goals.
The Hounds crawled back to within one in the second period with Neka Jean’s first career goal. The Broncos, however, would never let up the equalizer.
2nd year Bronco, Connor Miller scored his first of the season to round out the scoring. It was the second Broncos’ powerplay goal of the night as they finished with a 25% success rate, while their penalty kill went 2/3.
Edouard Gauthier picked up his first career SJHL win stopping 22 of 25 in net for the green and gold.
The Broncos and Hounds will wrap up the opening weekend set down in Wilcox on Sunday, September 22, 2024.
