The Lacombe Generals are 4 wins away from another Allan Cup tournament berth. They will face the same team they went up against in last year’s provincial final, the Stony Plain Eagles. That series is famous, or perhaps infamous, for Kyle Sheen’s hit on Ryan Smyth that reverberated across national headlines and resulted in what amounted to a year long suspension for the Generals forward.  Head Coach Sean Robertson says it’s an incident that he and the team are moving past.
 
“I personally feel that he’s served his time and then some.  I mean, he served a 41 game suspension for a hit. Like it or don’t like it, I don’t know the last time that somebody served a suspension that long.  So I think it’s water under the bridge. I think he is an ambassador for our hockey.  He might’ve crossed a line, he might not have, but he’s an ambassador for our game and how everybody goes to work and plays hard. For us, we basically want to win a playoff series and that’s kind of all we’re looking at.”
 
The Generals took the regular season series 4-2 including two big late season wins of 4-0 and 5-2.  The best of seven series gets underway this Friday (Mar 9) with Game 1 at the Gary Moe Autogroup Sportsplex at 8:30pm with Game 2 in Stony Plain on Saturday (Mar 10) at 7:30.
 
Saturday is also the early bird deadline to get tickets for the Black & Gold Moth Ball.  Tickets purchased for this ladies night fundraiser before then get into a draw for a complimentary limo ride to the event March 24th at the Lacombe Memorial Centre.  Assistant GM Boyd Williams says there are lots of other great prizes to be won as well.
 
“We’re going to have a really fun purse raffle and what that’s going to entail is we’re going to have three purses. They are expensive purses, like $300, $400 or $500 purses. So one of them is going to have a $3400 ring in it, one of them is going to have about a $1500 ring in it, and one’s going to have a $1000 necklace.  It’s going to be fun.”
 
Tickets are going fast and are available from Boyd at Royal Lepage Lifestyles Realty, Lionel’s No Frills in Lacombe or by calling Charmen Baron at 403-318-4400.  More details about the evening can be found on the Lacombe Generals Facebook page.