Hunter Brown’s hockey helmet wasn’t built to stop an impact with a concrete wall but it had no choice.
It took the brunt of its owner’s frustrations when he took it off and whipped it against the wall in disgust as he headed to the dressing room after the Cariboo Cougars suffered the first major setback of their inaugural season the B.C. Hockey Minor Midget League.
The Fraser Valley Thunderbirds were the cause of the Cougars’ discontent when they rolled into Kin 1 and swept a three-game series.
The weekend started with a 4-3 overtime loss on Friday and the Thunderbirds took the next two, 4-1 and 3-1. The three defeats dropped the Cougars (9-4-1-1) into third place in the 10-team league, three points behind Fraser Valley.
“We came out slow in the first two games but I thought we had a good performance in the third one, it’s just the bounces weren’t going our way,” said Brown, the Cougars’ captain, one of three Fort St. John products on the team of 15-year-olds.
“We can’t take any teams lightly. We can’t take any shifts off. We have to go in with the right mindset. Every game counts with the season half done.”
The Cougars can take some solace in the fact Sunday was their best game of the three. They certainly had their share of chances around the T-birds net, especially in the third period. Trailing 2-0, Brown deflected a shot off the crossbar and just missed whacking in the loose puck three minutes into the period. Then, after an eight minute stretch without a whistle and several close calls in the T-birds’ end, Kellan Brienen scored with a sharp-angle shot from the left side to make it a one-goal game.
But with just 5:34 left, T-birds winger Zach Urquhart, the overtime hero on Friday, slipped a low shot in under the glove of goalie Colton Phillips-Watts which pretty much sealed the Cougars’ fate.
They had a few more cracks at the net but goalie Ryan Siteman was locked in. He made 22 saves as his team outshot the Cougars 28-23.
Abram Wiebe, on a T-birds’ power play, and Nathan Frew scored the other Fraser Valley goals.
“We ended it on a positive note and we told them not to hang their heads,” said Cougars assistant coach Chase Astorino. “I thought overall they played a pretty hard game and it wasn’t quite the fate they deserved. There were some bounces that didn’t go our way.
“That’s a good team, they all stick to their systems and they’re pretty well-structured and can roll all three lines so it was a good matchup for us,” he added. “We definitely outworked them and we showed what we were made of in the third period.
“They need to learn that getting swept isn’t acceptable and we told them to keep that in the back of their minds and make sure they prepare themselves for next weekend. I know they all feel pretty bad about it and I’m sure it won’t happen again.”
Fraser Valley started the weekend in third place and the T-birds now occupy top spot with a league-leading 11-3-1-1 record, two points ahead of the Okanagan Rockets (10-1-1-0), who have three games in hand.
The Cougars host the fourth-place North Island Silvertips (8-5-2-0) in a three-game set which starts Friday night at Kin 1.
Meanwhile, on the B.C. Hockey Major Midget League front, the Cariboo Cougars solidified their hold on second place in the 11-team league after posting a pair of road wins over the Valley West Hawks.
Cariboo beat the Hawks 5-3 Sunday in Delta, after a 4-2 win Saturday in Langley.
Cariboo hosts first-place Fraser Valley (18-3-1-0) in a two-game series Saturday night and Sunday morning at Kin 1. The Cougars are four points back of the T-birds.
After a few days off for Christmas the Cougars will head to Calgary for the Mac’s invitational tournament which starts Dec. 26.
