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(Image Credit: Randy Feere/Medicine Hat Tigers)
Sports

Tigers tackle Hurricanes 7-3 in physical preseason battle

Sep 5, 2026 | 10:40 PM

The Medicine Hat Tigers took down the Lethbridge Hurricanes 7-3 Saturday night to improve to 2-0 in the preseason.

“It was all about evalutaion tonight, you gotta try to find out who you’ve got,” said Tigers Head Coach and General Manager Willie Desjardins.

“Chorley I thought had a good game, I thought Hynes for playing at home was good. I thought Evaschesen, seeing hime in the lineup here had a good game, Reschny played good on the back-end so I thought we had lots of guys that stepped up and played well.”

Medicine Hat locals Josh Evaschesen and Ty Hynes found the back of the net as well in front of their hometown crowd.

“It was an unreal experience, a lot of family came out,” said Evaschesen.

Evaschesen was acquired by the Tigers in mid-August after electing to defer his NCAA commitment to RPI to play his 20-year-old season for his hometown team.

“When I was younger, I was playing in the BCHL trying to get a scholarship, so when the rule changed I obviously thought it would be great to play here, but I ended up going to Kamloops and then got lucky enough to end up getting traded here,” he added.

Despite being the preseason, the divisional rivalry remained hot, culminating in Luke Ruptash accumulating 22 minutes of penalties in one stoppage, including a five-minute major for cross-checking and another for fighting at the midway point of the third period.

Morgan Chorley, Yaroslav Bryzgalov, Luke Cozens, Dayton Reschny and Gavin Kor rounded out the Tigers scoring in the four-goal win.

Carter Casey was solid in net for the Tigers, turning away 25 of 28 Hurricane shots.

Brody Rotar allowed seven goals on 18 shots before being pulled for Koen Cleaver, who made eight saves in relief.

The Tigers conclude their preseason next weekend with a home-and-home against the Swift Current Broncos.