It was a weekend the BC Major Midget Kootenay Ice will try to forget.
The Ice travelled to Prince George for a two-game set against the Cariboo Cougars and didn’t score a goal, losing 12-0 and 9-0 to the 2017 BCMML champions.
Prior to the weekend matches, the Cougars sat in seventh place, just two points up on the Ice in the BCMML standings. That all changed, and much like Frankenstein’s monster, Cariboo’s offence came to life in their home rink.
“Last weekend I thought we were creating offence against the (Thompson) Blazers and it just filtered into this weekend against Kootenay and we ended up putting up two big numbers,” Cougars head coach Tyler Brough told the Prince George Citizen. “But on the other side of that, defensively, I thought we were just as good. We didn’t give up anything. It was pretty convincing and that’s what this team needs right now.”
Curtis Hammond netted a hat trick on Sunday, with the Cougars sporting green jerseys to help raise money and promote awareness of mental health. Brendan Pigeon scored twice and former Ice player Booker Daniel had a goal and two assists, while Brennan Bott, Jacob Gendron and Max Arnold added singles.
Cariboo jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals from Pigeon and Gendron, and were up just 4-0 after two on tallies from Arnold and Daniel. But a five-goal third period broke the game wide open.
The Cougars outshot Kootenay 53-13 in Sunday’s match, and put a ton of pressure on Ice goalies Tenzin Mint and Charles Curiston on the weekend.
Game 1 was a similar story, where the Cougars took a 5-0 lead into the third and scored seven more for the 12-0 drubbing.
The Ice were without top forward Dayton Nelson and assistant captain Anthony Williams on defence, and supplemented their roster with the addition of affiliate player Jacob Smith and new recruit Slade Desharnais, who played with the Thompson Blazers last season. Desharnais, a Fort St. James native, is a six-foot-one, 200-pound forward who grew up playing hockey with Ice forward Caleb Goncalves of Vanderhoof.
The losses drop the Ice to ninth place in the BCMML with a 3-7-0-0 record. Kootenay will look to return to form when they play the 8-4-0-0 Okanagan Rockets at the Capital News Centre in Kelowna this weekend. The puck drops at 5 p.m Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday.
