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Senior couple combats two armed robbers

When two masked men wielding a knife and handgun robbed the Royal Hotel at about 11 p.m. last Tuesday, all the owners cared about

When two masked men wielding a knife and handgun robbed the Royal Hotel at about 11 p.m. last Tuesday, all the owners cared about — a senior couple — was protecting each other.

One assailant took the woman and started walking away with her, said the 67-year-old husband, who co-owns the bar with his wife in Stettler.

“I followed them.”

He grabbed a baseball bat that he kept hidden for such an emergency, though in his more than two decades of running a business in Edmonton and Stettler, he had never needed it — until now.

“I picked it up and I started swinging,” the man said, lifting his hands and making a circular motion.

But one of assailants took the bat and a fight ensued between the two.

That’s when his wife’s instincts kicked in and she tried to stop them from fighting.

“He tried to hit my husband,” she said. “I had to do something.”

During the scuffle, her hands were cut. Stettler EMS transported her to the Stettler hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Cpl. Cameron Russell of the Stettler RCMP said “two young males” stole an undisclosed amount of cash and ran off down the alley next to the hotel.

Police announced Monday that they charged brothers Cruise Donovan, 23, and Chase Donovan, 19, with the robbery.