There are only a couple of weekends left before the Strathmore Wheatland Kings players get a much deserved break for the season this Christmas.

The local Junior B hockey team is hoping to put a few more wins behind them and move up a bit in the division standings before the end of 2021.

We spoke to General Manager Lee Smith about how the team played on the weekend, where they had two away games, an 11-2 win and a 5-1 defeat.

“Friday night we went down to Kainai and won 11 to 2. We played really well, and then we went to Sylvan Lake yesterday and we lost 5 to 1, but the score really wasn't indicative of the game,” said Smith. “We played really well for two periods. We just kind of took the third period off and they scored four.” The Sylvan Lake Wranglers are at the top of the North division and are a difficult team to beat."

"They’re in first place in the North and they’re a good club,” said Smith. He explained that the team fell apart a bit in the third period, and will need to work on endurance and focus in the future.

“We need to get some more wins in the win column. We're right in the middle of the pack in the South,” said Smith. "We'd like to move up in the standings, we'd like to get up to second or third.”

The team has some work to do this week as they get ready to head back out on the road this Friday night and play at home for the first time this month on Saturday with a game time of 8 pm.

"This weekend we're going back down to Kainai Friday night and then Saturday we're at home with Mountain View, the weekend after we play High River twice and Red Deer once,” said Smith.

Goaltender Landen Brassard echoed the thoughts of Smith, after coming off a win and loss this weekend, "We just have to be a little more consistent, we need to throw some more hits and it should all end up working. We are a pretty decent team when it comes to it we just need to be really consistent."

King fans can keep up with the Strathmore Wheatland Kings and their Christmas online raffle and 50/50, which goes to support team operations, to enter both visit winkingscash.com.