Chris Bond is more concerned about the process than the results. And, so far, he has no complaints about his Farr Fabricating bantam Tier 1 Cougars.
Bond is the head coach of the local minor hockey rep team, a club formed by the top 13- and 14-year-olds in the city. With seven first-year guys on their roster, the Cats are younger than many of their opponents and that explains Bond's approach to the season.
To date, the Cougars have a 1-3 record in the Okanagan Mainline Amateur Hockey Association. They absorbed lopsided losses against the Pursuit of Excellence Hockey Academy (11-1 and 7-1) but then bounced back with a 4-1 win against Kelowna. In their fourth game, they were edged 5-4 by Kelowna, a game in which they held the lead until the late stages.
Overall, Bond is pleased with what he has seen from his troops.
"There has been improvement," he said. "Individually and as a team, guys are getting a little bit better. We are a very young team so especially at the start of the year we weren't quite at the bantam Tier 1 level but we're starting to put that together now."
The Cougars have also skated in three tournaments, including one last weekend in Kamloops. There, they posted one victory in four games. The Cats beat Cowichan Valley 7-2, lost 5-1 to Abbotsford, dropped a 3-2 decision to Coquitlam and, in their final outing, fell 4-3 to Okanagan Hockey Academy. OHA defeated Abbotsford in the championship game, so the Cougars were in a tough pool. Bond was especially happy with his club's effort against OHA.
"Before that game started, we were out of the tournament -- we couldn't move on [to the playoffs] and they were playing for seeding," he said. "And we were down 3-0 half way through the game and it would have been pretty easy for everybody to pack it in and lose 6-1 or 7-1 or whatever, but we didn't. We got some momentum and kept going. We had the goalie out and had some chances at the end to tie it but just couldn't pull the trigger."
In goal this season, the Cougars have 13-year-old Jacob Sweet and 14-year-old Jamie Ferguson, a first-year rep player who has proven to be very effective between the pipes. Other team members are Darren Hards, Mitchell Williams, Dylan Krahn, James Gordon, Darian Long, Garrett Hilton, Jax Bailey, Devin Sutton, Bailey Mcfaul, Jarin Sutton, Carl Ewert, Jared Stevens, Brett Wakabayashi, Jesse Pomeroy, Jeremy Gervais and Mateo Albinati.
The Cougars are off this weekend and will host Kelowna in a pair of league games next weekend. Their home tournament is scheduled for Dec. 7-9.
