Sask. hockey team so desperate for players it turns to Twitter callout

The Rosthern Wheatkings senior men’s team was so desperate for players for its game on Saturday it resorted to Twitter.

“If you’ve ever wanted to give senior hockey a try, tonight’s your lucky chance! 8:00pm in Kinistino. DM our page if you’re interested. We’ll have a jersey for ya, and even beers postgame,” the tweet said.

Rosthern was set to faceoff against the Kinistino Tigers.

The team made the post after realizing it would only have eight skaters though their group chat.

“You get into late January and everybody's busy with families and everybody's got stuff going around and sickness and it gets cold and it's tough to get guys committed to hockey sometimes,” said Wheatkings Coach Jesse Mattson.

“The guy that runs our social media at that point was like, I'm going put out a message on Twitter,” said Mattson. “I thought it was quite hilarious.”

In the end, the Wheatkings call for aid went unanswered. They would take to the ice with only eight players, one more showing up in the 2nd period.

“I’m like, okay, they got all their best players here tonight. We might be in for a tough one,” said Mattson.

According to Mattson, the Tigers had three full lines.

But as the old saying goes, its not the size of the dog in the fight but rather the size of the fight in the dog.

“It just shows a lot of character for what we have on our team. To drive all the way to Kinistino, which is probably our furthest road trip and go with the guys that went and just not back down and just play,” said Mattson.

Rosthern ended up winning the game versus the Tigers 5-3.