For one period out of the six they played this past weekend, the Prince George Coast Inn of the North Cougars resembled the team that dominated last season as provincial champions of the Tier 1 midget hockey division.
Unfortunately for the Cougars, they were not able to replicate that pace in the other five periods and lost both of their Okanagan Mainline Amateur Hockey Association games on home ice to the Central Okanagan Rockets.
On Sunday at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena, the Rockets were held to just seven first-period shots but two of them ended up in the net. Mitchell Pelletier and Paul Hauk each collected goals for a 2-0 lead. The Rockets survived a relentless Cougars' attack in the second period, allowing just one goal - a screened point blast from Brandon Dent with Kyle Boshier blocking goalie James Johnston's view. It wasn't nearly enough for the Cougars.
A momentary lack of discipline proved especially costly. Cougars winger Tyler Marsh was serving the second half of a four-minute penalty for a check to the head when the Rockets connected on the power play, five minutes into the third period. Curtis Magus pounced on a rebound and lifted the puck over sprawling Cougars goalie Jake Sweet into the open net to seal a 3-1 victory.
That came less than a day after the Rockets beat the Cougars 2-1 in a game played at Kin 1.
"The second period we came on to them, but in the first and third we couldn't bury any chances so at Tuesday's practice we're going to have to change that up a bit," said 17-year-old Cougars defenceman and team captain, Logan Archer.
"On Saturday, the guys just weren't ready for it and it kind of carried over. We just have to rethink things now. We have to stay disciplined, our penalties have been bad this year.
"We were getting the shots but just can't do anything else. It was tough to get pucks deep and we started doing that in the second but couldn't do it in the third. Last weekend, we were getting pucks deep, we were cycling it and getting lots of shots, going hard to the net and right now we're not doing that. We're back to our old selves at the start of the season."
The two losses dropped the Cougars' record to 2-2-0 while the Rockets improved to 3-1-1 and leapfrogged the Cats in the five-team standings. It was a disappointing response for a Cougar team that did so well at a Tier 1 tournament the previous weekend in Kelowna, where they finished second, losing in the final to St. Albert. Alta.
The Cougars are young this season, with nine 15-year-old first-year midgets. Just four players remain from last year's provincial champions - Boshier, Sweet, James Pattie and Braeden Young. They will host the eight-team provincial tournament in March.
Similar to the Cougars, the Rockets are reloading after a successful season and have seven 15-year-old players. Rockets head coach Lee Hamilton was counting his blessings his team was able to get out of the second period still holding a lead.
"They had to battle hard because Prince George is a very tough team to play against, they come at you hard from all avenues of the ice and it was nice to get that extra cushion in the third period," Hamilton said.
"I expect this to be a pretty good rivalry all the way through the season."
The Rockets came close to making it 4-1 on a 2-on-1 chance with eight minutes left. Magus sent James Fischer in alone with the puck and Fischer's shot beat Sweet, but not the crossbar and the puck deflected straight down off the bar without crossing the line.
The Cougars had some prolonged territorial pressure trying to get back into the game in the late stages and took advantage of a Rockets penalty to get Sweet to the bench for a 6-on-4 advantage with 93 seconds left. But like they had done all game, the Rockets worked together to clog the middle of the ice, limiting the Cougars to mostly long-range shots from the edges of the rink. When they did get the puck in close and were sniffing around for a rebound, they either missed open nets or ran into a Rocket defender.
"I think it's frustrating when the effort's there - everyone's giving an effort and we just come up short. We just need to find a way to put the puck in the net and get a little more traffic in front," said Cougars co-coach RJay Berra, who splits the duties with Justin Fillion.
"We struggled to get pucks through and find that rebound. If we bury a couple of those it's a completely different weekend. We took it to them for 20 minutes in the second period but we need a more complete effort throughout the whole game. When we were in Kelowna we played such a good defensive game that when we did score goals we just built off that. From the net out, we were better in Kelowna."
In their next OMAHA league games, the Cougars will host Fort St. John in a two-game series this weekend at Kin 1.
