Success comes with baby steps and on the weekend the Prince George major midget female Cougars stood tall against the top team in the hockey league.
The Cougars (3-6-1) split a pair of games this weekend with the Fraser Valley Phantoms, winning 2-0 on Saturday at CN Centre before falling 4-3 to the Phantoms on Sunday at the Coliseum.
"The girls played extremely hard all weekend and gave the top team in the league all they could handle," said Cougars coach Stewart Malgunas.
In the 2-0 win Meagan Hickey and Madison Fjellstrom had the goals while Kelsey Roberts, a 14-year-old affiliate player from Kitimat, picked up the shutout. In Sunday's loss, Cheyanne Newman had two goals and Kelsey Todd notched the other.
The Cougars have had to rely on Roberts and Avery Quiring, a bantam affiliate goaltender from Prince George, to man the net due to an injury to starting goalie Kali Walls.
In addition to their on-ice success the Cougars will host a B.C. Female Major Midget League Super Series weekend for the first time, Dec. 12-13. The weekend will have all five teams playing four games each. The league hosts three or four super weekends a season to make travel more cost-effective for teams.
The Cougars went 1-3 during the first super weekend of the season but have since split with the top two teams in the league, the Phantoms and Pacific Ravens.
Malgunas is also coaching the youngest team in the BCFMML as the majority of the players are only 15-years-old while other teams have more 16- and 17-year-olds.
The Cougars also received an invitation Saturday to participate in the 35th annual Mac's Midget tournament, held Dec. 26 to Jan. 1 in Calgary. It's the first time ever that Prince George will send a team to compete in the female division. The BCMML Cariboo Cougars received their seventh Mac's invite last week.
