Jesse Pomeroy has played a lot of games for the Cariboo Cougars.
After helping the Cougars to an 8-2 B.C. Hockey Major Midget League win Sunday over the Thompson Blazers at Kin 1, Pomeroy has now played more games (112) than any other player in the history of the team.
The 17-year-old defenceman is proud of his midget milestone but it’s even better for Pomeroy when he looks back at how many of those games his team has won over that three-year span.
The Cats are all alone atop the standings with a 27-4-1 record and they’re 84-22-7 in the two-and-a-half seasons they’ve had Pomeroy patrolling the blue line. When he comes to the rink, he expects his team to win, and that’s a habit that’s proven hard to break.
“It’s almost scary sometimes to know that we could lose but we always push ourselves to know we can beat any team in this league and that’s probably why we push so hard,” said Pomeroy, who scored the game-winner Saturday in a 4-2 win over the Blazers.
Cougars head coach Trevor Sprague says Pomeroy is the consummate leader and sets the example he’d like all his players to follow.
“His demeanour as a young man is exceptional, the way he treats every guy in that dressing room is the reason why he’s the captain – he cares about every shift he takes and every shift our guys take,” said Sprague. “The harder things for him are coming up in the next couple of months and he’s going to handle it; he has a great supporting staff in there.”
After a scoreless first period Sunday the Cougars went to town, scoring six unanswered goals in the second. Brennan Malgunas got them started at 4:18 with a shot from the point, the second of three goals on the weekend for the 16-year-old defenceman.
“The puck came out to me and I just saw the hole and put it in,” said Malgunas, who has eight goals this season. “It’s pretty surreal playing for this team, most guys don’t have this opportunity to be able to win every game and I’m pleased to have that.”
Malgunas, whose dad Kevin played 10 seasons of minor pro as a right winger and whose uncle Stewart was an NHL defenceman for seven years, is blessed with hockey genes, honed on outdoor rinks in Prince George starting when he was only two years old. Brennan made the jump this season from the Tier 1 midget Cougars and he’s getting more comfortable with the faster pace.
“He has great poise with the puck, he’s making good decisions, he’s a kid you can go out and talk to and make adjustments and he goes out and does it,” said Sprague. “The team is way better offensively and he’s building a lot more confidence for himself.”
In their six-goal second period, Hunter Floris scored a pair and singles came off the sticks of Darian Long, Daine DuBois and Ty Kolle, who also had three assists.
In the third period, Tyler Gayfer got the Blazers on the board with a power-play goal 48 seconds in. Reid Perepeluk, for the Cougars, and Alexandre Erischuk, for the Blazers, traded goals before Malgunas capped the scoring late.
Shots were 51-23 in favour of the Cougars.
The Cougars ran into a hot goaltender Saturday. They outshot the Blazers 48-18 but Max Palaga, who played one WHL game this season for Kamloops, was not in a giving mood and his acrobatic dives across the crease kept the Blazers in position to upset the league-leaders. It wasn’t decided until Pomeroy put the Cougars ahead 3-2 with a power-play goal with five minutes left. DuBois salted away the victory into an empty net.
The Blazers’ season record dropped to 6-23-0-1, second-worst in the league, but with former NHLer Geoff Smith now behind the bench, their work ethic is unquestionable.
“They’ve gotten a lot better since the first time we played them in the first half of the season and it was a lot more exciting weekend to play a team that works hard and pushes us," Pomeroy said.
The Cougars have the weekend off and will be back in action Feb. 11-12 when they host the Fraser Valley Thunderbirds in a two-game set at Kin 1. The midget Cats have eight games left in the season.
