Minkus makes it happen

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This article was published 18/03/2025 (187 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Don’t forget about Chloe Minkus.

The Glenlawn forward doesn’t get the same attention as some of her teammates, but on a night the Lions were without three of their best players, she showed that she’s more than deserving of similar recognition.

A hearty four-point performance from Minkus powered Glenlawn to a 4-1 victory over the Collège Jeanne-Sauvé Olympiens in Game 1 of the Manitoba Women’s High School Hockey League Division 1 championship series at Seven Oaks Arena on Tuesday.

Glenlawn leads the best-of-three series and can claim its first city title in program history with a win in Game 2 Thursday, at Seven Oaks (4:15 p.m.). Game 3, if necessary, is Friday at 4:15 p.m.

“What she does on the ice, and if you watch her, every shift she is going full out,” said Lions co-head coach Brad Nechwediuk.

“She’s the heart and soul, and you see that out there. She’s the first person back-checking, she’s the first person chasing them — every shift. That is amazing for somebody to be able to do that and maintain it for the whole game.”

The circumstances were far from ideal for the Lions to begin a championship series, icing eight forwards and four defencemen as Delainey and Vayda Rigaux, and Leah Claussen played in Game 1 of the Manitoba Female Hockey League U18 AAA final between the Eastman Selects and Winnipeg Avros.

Minkus played every second shift in the first period, but realizing that wasn’t sustainable, Nechwediuk bumped her workload down to every third shift beginning in the second frame.

“Gassed,” said Minkus, who had two goals and two assists. “Our chests, we were on the bench, my line, sitting after every shift. Our lungs were burning, but we knew what we had to do to get the win and we knew what we wanted to accomplish and so we got it done.”

Sam Breier scored twice for the Lions, including the opening goal of the contest and an empty-netter. Payton Durand had the lone reply for the Olympiens.

Lions goaltender Jovi Wozny stopped 38 of 39 shots, while Celeste Pelletier steered aside 20 of the 23 she faced.

Minkus, a tenacious and speedy right-shot, checked in at No. 7 on the Free Press’ coaches poll of the top 10 high school players in the province.

“I always put pressure on myself. I’m always so hard on myself, and I think coming into it, all of us knew what we had to do. We knew we were down our three best players and we just knew all of us can score, all of us can perform, and, personally, I know what I can do on the ice,” she said.

“(Monday night), I was looking at game tape and I was like, ‘Ok, I can do this,’ (assuring) myself I know what I’m doing and just executed. Everybody played their role, everybody played a part and really stepped up to perform, and it was amazing to see.”

The Olympiens had the shorthanded Lions on the ropes for much of the middle frame, leading in shots 25-8 after two periods.

Head coach Melissa Blaine felt her team was outworked and out-skated in the third period. She acknowledged it was a missed opportunity for her group, which may have to face a Lions squad at full strength in Game 2 with its season on the line.

“If a team’s playing without their top players, that’s awesome for us. But we said before this game it doesn’t change how we need to play, and we didn’t play the way we need to play, whether they were there or not,” Blaine said. “Of course, it’ll make a difference in the game when you have calibre at that level, but we just didn’t show up, especially in the third period.”

Minkus was named the game’s first star, while Breier and CJS’ Jewel Lafleche were named second and third stars, respectively.

“It’ll be just as difficult,” Nechwediuk said of Game 2. “We’ve had close games when we’ve had our full roster against them. We just got to stick to this game plan and I think we can put ourselves in a good position to win this.”

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca