The Cariboo Cougars can climb up a couple of rungs in the B.C. Major Midget League standings this weekend with a pair of wins over the visiting North Island Silvertips.
"We really want to get on a roll and this is a huge weekend for us to get some more confidence," Cougars head coach Bryan MacLean said. "Coming out of last weekend, I thought we played well for two games."
A weekend sweep would allow the Cougars to shoot up from seventh to fifth in the standings, passing both the Silvertips and the idle South Island Royals.
At 6-7-1 on the year, the Cougars have had trouble stringing together wins, but with a logjam developing in the middle of the pack, MacLean knows a winning streak now can quickly cure any early season woes.
The Silvertips, 6-6-2, come into the weekend one point ahead of the Cougars and will be keen to put some distance between themselves and their northern rivals.
"North Island is a good competitive team," MacLean said. "They're going to be ready to go."
The Cougars spent the first part of the week of practice on defensive zone coverage and their responsibilities in front of their own net. Later in the week, the focus shifted to special teams.
MacLean said he's looking for the line of Jesse Roach, Steven Jandric and Isaiah Berra to have continued success offensively, but he knows the Silvertips will be keying on stopping the Cougars' top point producers.
"Teams are going to start taking notice and they're going to really focus on those guys," he said. "For us it's a matter of getting them on the ice when they're going to be successful."
The teams meet at CN Centre at 4:15 p.m. on Saturday and at 10 a.m. on Sunday.
