Midget AA playoffs
The Northern Alberta Midget AA Hockey League playoffs started Tuesday for the St. Albert teams in the Besa division tournament.
The scores were unavailable between the Source for Sports Crusaders and Leduc Roughnecks and the Steel against the Fort Saskatchewan Rangers.
The seven-team playoff consists of games in Spruce Grove and Stony Plain.
The winner qualifies for the best-of-three metro conference semifinal against the Anderson division rep.
The Crusaders (28-3-1, 202 GF/84 GA) are ranked first in the 23-team circuit and the Steel (25-5-2, 159 GF/89 GA) are slotted second behind the Crusaders in the Besa standings while tied with the NEBC Yukon Trackers (25-5-2, 163 GF/69 GA) of the Milltech division for the second-most points in league play.
Upcoming for Crusaders, the defending Playoff Cup champions, are the Rangers (9-19-4) tonight at 6 p.m. at Grant Fuhr Arena, PAC Saints (16-13-3) at 7:15 p.m. Friday at Grant Fuhr Arena and Sturgeon Sting (18-11-3) at 7:15 p.m. Saturday at Tri-Leisure Centre.
The Steel skate tonight against the Roughnecks (5-27) at 8:30 p.m. at Grant Fuhr Arena, Friday against the Sting at 6 p.m. at Tri-Leisure Centre and Saturday against the Saints at 3 p.m. at Grant Fuhr Arena.
The rest of the round-robin schedule was unavailable at press time.
REM 15AA playoffs
The St. Albert Royals can advance into the next playoff round with a victory Thursday against the Strathcona Warriors in the Rural & Edmonton Midget 15AA Hockey League.
Faceoff is 8:15 p.m. at Go Auto Arena.
The sixth-place Royals (15-11-6), seventh-place Strathcona (13-16-3) third-place Red Deer Chiefs (21-7-4) and second-place Hockey Central Panthers (25-4-3) are competing in the blue pool round robin and the top two teams advance to the best-of-five semifinals against the red pool qualifiers.
The Royals (1-1) knocked off the Panthers (0-1) in last week’s 3-2 shootout decision in Sylvan Lake and lost 6-3 to Red Deer (2-0) Saturday in St. Albert.
The Panthers are winners of the last two REM finals against the Royals.
Tuesday’s score between the Panthers and Strathcona (0-1) was unavailable at pres time.
The Panthers host Red Deer on Saturday.
The Royals surrendered four power-play goals against Red Deer, including three in the first period to trail 4-2.
Rowan Cake tallied twice, Sebastian Laurent notched his third of the playoffs and Reese Wildeman added two assists.
The Royals were outshot 40-31 and Josh McCormack was in net.
