Maybe it was the presence of Bret "The Hitman" Hart in the building that did it.
Or the blast of winter air that brought the return of hockey weather to the city.
And it certainly didn't hurt that the Lethbridge Hurricanes is one of the worst teams in the Western Hockey League.
Whatever it was, it put enough wind in the sails of the Prince George Cougars to lift them to their first four-point weekend at home this season, and they hope that's a sign of a changing climate for a team that has just six wins on home ice.
Saturday's 4-2 win wasn't quite enough to move the Cougars (15-26-0-2) into a playoff position, but they're now only one point behind eighth-place Victoria with a game in hand.
The Cougars picked up where they left off in Friday's 6-3 win over Lethbridge. In both games, the Cougars mounted rapid pushbacks that seemed to sap the strength of the Hurricanes.
Although outshot 13-9, the Cougars generated better chances than the Hurricanes in the first period Saturday. One of them resulted in a goal, a follow-up effort from Daulton Siwak while parked at the side of the net after Ketlo made a stick save to deny Troy Bourke. That lead lasted until the 2:09 mark of the third period when Brady Ramsay jumped on a fat rebound given up by Drew Owsley on a long shoot-in. Ramsay beat his check to the puck and ripped a shot in off Owlsey's shoulder.
Three minutes after Ramsay scored, the Cougars struck for a pair of goals 92 seconds apart.
Winger Jordan Tkatch continues to play beyond his 16 years and collected his 10th of the season and second of the weekend, stripping the puck away from defenceman Daniel Johnston along the boards and then finishing with a low wrist shot that fooled Ketlo.
"We have some veteran experience with [Spencer Asuchak] on my line and I found that coming back from [the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge] I had a little more confidence than usual and it seem the results came," said Tkatch.
Jesse Forsberg made it 3-1, tipping in his brother Alex's point shot while standing in front of the Lethbridge goal on a Cougars' power play.
"Obviously we're not the most offensive team and over the weekend we got 10 goals in total and that's a change for us," said Bourke. "It wasn't just our line that produced, we got it from all the lines."
Siwak was dangerous all night, energizing a line with Bourke and Alex Forsberg that drew considerable power-play duty. Siwak, acquired from Red Deer for his speed and offensive touch, came through with goals in both weekend games.
"Siwak works hard down low and in the D-zone and he's pretty relentless," Bourke said. "He gets me the puck on the wall almost every time and obviously he can score and that's huge."
Jake Mykitiuk, a pint-sized centre from St. Albert, Alta., gave the home boys even more breathing room after he won a face-off in the Lethbridge end and wired a wicked wrister high into the net. Jay Berkley capped the scoring in the final minute, just as time had expired on a Cougar penalty.
"It was obviously a huge weekend for us in terms of building some confidence after a slow start to the new year and ice to get some wins at home and score some goals too," said Cougars assistant coach Jason Becker.
"They kind of took it to us the first couple minutes of the third period and got some momentum. But we were able to bounce back. That goal from Tkatch was huge."
Owsley turned in another first-star performance, making 45 saves. One of his best came 12 minutes in, when he got the blocker down to deny Adam Henry, who had redirected the puck with his skate.
"Owsley is a good goalie, one of the better ones in the league the last couple years," said Hurricanes head coach Rich Preston. "We ran into a hot goalie and that was the difference."
Cougars defenceman Ricard Blidstrand, acquired in the trade deadline deal that sent Martin Marincin to Regina, made his presence felt late in the second period with a big shoulder check that leveled Lethbridge forward Jaimen Yakubowski.
With 192 goals allowed through 46 games, the Hurricanes rank second-worst in the WHL. After winning eight of 10 games leading up to the Christmas break, they've now lost seven of their last 10. But it wasn't the 20-year-old Ketlo's fault his team went pointless in front of his family and friends from Fort Fraser among the crowd of 1,876.
"We just have to bear down on our chances. We've struggled after the Christmas break and we need to play the full 60 to get the wins in these games," said Ketlo, who started his WHL career with Regina.
"Some guys on the team have to step up. We got rid of our top scorer [Cam Braes] at the deadline and we can't sit here and pout around and wait for someone to save us. We have to step up ourselves."
