Home-and-home
Locals take on Cape Breton West today
The Weeks Major Midgets are in search of some wins as they have two upcoming games against reigning national champ Cape Breton West
The Pictou County Weeks Major Midgets will play the Cape Breton West Islanders on Friday, hoping to start putting up Ws.
The Major Midgets (8-14-3) have lost four games in a row and seven of their last eight to drop into sixth place in the eight-team Nova Scotia Major Midget Hockey League.
“We’re not getting blown out of the water – most of our games have been fairly close,” coach Kyle MacLennan said.
“We’ve been struggling to score goals. You look at teams that struggle, a lot of times they’ll try to make things more complex than they really are. When things aren’t going well for you, everybody has a tendency to try to do too much.”
The Major Midgets have scored just six goals in their past five games, the only win in that stretch being a 1-0 victory over the South Shore Mustangs.
When a team is in a goal-scoring funk, the solution in most cases, MacLennan added, is to get pucks to the net, go looking for rebounds “and get those dirty goals in the nasty areas. And that might be what gets the ball rolling for you.”
Carson Lanceleve leads the team with 22 points (7G, 15A) on the season in 24 games played, while rounding out the top three point-getters for Weeks are Rowan Sears (7G, 9A) and Benjamin Williams (6G, 7A).
While the Major Midgets have had trouble putting together wins, MacLennan isn’t that worried.
“It happens at every level – you see a team that has double-digit losing streaks, and then they turn around and win five or six games in a row.”
He said he sees encouraging signs of improvement over the past number of weeks, said the players collective have a good attitude but need to focus on “the details,” even the simpler ones such as getting good line changes, or using quick sticks when trying to defend. Friday night’s game at the Pictou County Wellness Centre has a 7:30 p.m. start time. The two teams will square off again Dec. 27 in Port Hood.