How the Colorado Raptors have gotten off to a perfect start in Season 57 of the SMJHL


The Colorado rocky mountains are one of America’s most interesting vacation destinations for those that enjoy the outdoors. The ice caps of incredible rock faced mountain ranges are an impressive sight for Colorado natives as well. Each winter season, however, the Colorado natives also welcome a number of visitors that are not traveling to see the impressive tectonic wonders; instead, these visitors come to Colorado to dawn Raptors jerseys and get down to business playing the premier junior hockey league for SHL hopefuls.

While the Season 56 Colorado Raptors were as average as can be, finishing the season with a perfect five-hundred record at 24-24-2, the Season 57 Colorado Raptors seem to have caught lightning in a bottle early.

Colorado opened the Season 57 SMJHL regular season with a faceoff against the Quebec City Citadelles. Colorado took it to the Citadelles early and often in Quebec City, finishing the game with a relatively smooth 7-2 victory.

For their second contest of the season, Colorado jumped over the border from Quebec into the United States to take on the Timber in Maine. And on the back of a strong team win in Quebec, the Raptors continued to roll as they went into yet another away barn and won by multiple goals, finishing off the Timber in a 5-2 victory.

Continuing down the East Coast of the United States but with a few days for travel, the Raptors ventured to Carolina to take on the Kraken. After spending a few late autumn days in the northern regions of the United States and Canada, the Raptors enjoyed the Carolina sunshine and turned that recharge into yet another victory in Carolina, 4-3 over the Kraken. This stretched the Colorado winning streak to 3 games on their first three contests of a five-game road trip.

With no time to rest on their victories, the Raptors had to turn around and travel right back up north to take on a sputtering Newfoundland team out of the gate. And while the quick turnaround was a bit tougher on the Raptors, they still managed to string together a strong couple of periods and stretch their winning streak to four games with a third period goal by Ren-Ekelemchi Shimizu-Okoli.

Having made the most of their trip to the East Coast, the Raptors start their trek back west for their first home contest of the season against Anchorage in game six. However, before they can return back to play in front of their home crowd in Colorado, they had to make one more stop. Two days after their victory in Newfoundland, the Raptors head in to face off against the Falcons for the first matchup this season in Detroit. Colorado made yet another strong push and put the Falcons behind them in their fifth straight victory with a decisive 4-2 score.

It is certainly fair to say that the Colorado Raptors are off to the strongest start in the SMJHL this season. With a scoring differential of +12 through 5 contests (and all away contest), teams are already reeling with how they are going to manage to catch the Raptors in the standings. We’ll see if Colorado can extend their winning streak to six games, as they faceoff against another strong competitor in Anchorage in their first home contest of the season coming up today. It will be the first time that the Raptors have played at home this season and their first matchup with the last place Armada in their conference.

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