COMMENTS

By Luke Pierce, Assistant Coach

Merritt Centennials Hockey Club

If you are expecting this week’s column to be a long drawn out excuse about the illness our team was experiencing over the past week, you have come to the wrong place. I will mention once and only once that yes, many of our players have been experiencing flu-like symptoms (aka...The FLU). Wayne Gretzky played the best game of his career while he was sick, so I don’t put a lot of value in using it as an excuse.

Our goal for the weekend was to limit our defensive miscues, and for the most part it was an improvement over our previous play, but there is still work to do. The weekend itself was a daunting one, as we faced three teams that are all currently ranked in the top 10 in Canada.

Friday night saw the defending champion Vernon Vipers come to town. We came out with one of our worst starts of the year which forced us to play catch up against a very strong team. Our effort improved as the game progressed and, to take the positives out of a generally poor outing, we managed to be the first team to score more than three goals against the Vipers, and the first team to muster more than 30 shots against the stingiest defence in the league.

Heading into Penticton on Saturday, we were much better focused as a group and came out of the gate flying. Taking the body against a skilled Vees team proved extremely effective for the first 30 minutes. Some strong goaltending, from affiliate player Riley Wall helped to ensure we had a chance to win heading into the third period. Trailing 2-0 on the road, with 20 minutes remaining, should have created an atmosphere of desperation, belief, and desire to win; however, such was not the case.

Unfortunately, our players are struggling to believe in their ability to win games, and recognize an opportunity when it presents itself. For that, some of the responsibility must be placed on us as a coaching staff, for we need to find ways create an atmosphere of belief every single night.

Less than 12 hours after returning from Penticton, we were back at the arena preparing for another tough test against the Surrey Eagles, who currently lead the Coastal Conference. After surrendering two goals in the first two minutes of the game, the team rallied to play their best hockey of the weekend. We outplayed a very good team for the majority of the game, but due to some untimely miscues, and some strong opposition goaltending, we came out on the wrong side of a 5-2 score.

Overall, the weekend brought to light a very important aspect of our game that must be improved immediately. Vernon, Penticton, and Surrey all show a compete level that is beyond any other team in this league. We hope our players recognized that these teams do the little things that often go unnoticed by the average observer, and in order to consider ourselves a contender in this league we need to be more willing to take hits, give hits, block shots, play injured, play sick, and simply throw out any excuses that may be available, all in the belief of winning!

COACH’S

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