Wild swing in weekend series
On Saturday, with donations pouring in to help BC Children’s Hospital cancer patients on Jameson Jones night, the Cariboo Cougars responded on the ice with offerings of pucks they generously stuffed into the Okanagan Rockets net. The Cougars won 6-1. In the rematch Sunday morning at Kin 1, the door of opportunity to contribute points to their own standing in the B.C Hockey Major Midget League closed on the Cougars. Rockets goalie Cole Schwebius slammed it right in their faces.
In an abrupt turnaround from the night before, the Rockets embarrassed the Cougars 6-1 in their own barn, handing the Prince George team only its fourth loss of the season.
Schwebius, a 16-year-old from Kelowna, was good when he had to be while making 30 saves. But the warning signs were obvious this was not going to be one of the Cougars’ better games. For much of the game they looked like they would rather have been somewhere else.
Brendan Boyle took off on a breakaway and scored on the first shot Cats goalie Marcus Allen faced and in the second period the Rockets added goals from Tanner Brown and Ben King. But instead of trying to exploit the fact the visitors were playing their second game in less than a day after making the long bus trip north, the Cougars appeared disorganized and disinterested and suffered the consequences.
The Rockets scored three more in the final period to ensure the weekend split. Jack Findlay took advantage of his teammate King’s hustle digging out the puck to force a turnover and popped in a shorthanded goal, 4:03 into the third. About a minute later, Boyle connected for his second of the game. Rockets centre Brandon Dalla Paolera added insult to injury for the Cougars when he found an opening behind Allen with just 6.7 seconds left.
The Cougars were not up to scratch but maybe it was simply a case of the Rockets being a better team than their sixth-place record would indicate. Cats captain Mason Richey, the only Cougar to score on Schwebius on Sunday, admitted they thought they were in for another easy game.
“We had a great game (Saturday) and we might have thought the same thing would happen,” said Richey. “We had a rough start in the third but had a lot of chances to score, a couple open nets, but it just didn’t go our way. It was just a bad day for us.”
The loss left the Cougars with a 14-4-1-0 record and they fell four points behind the Valley West Hawks (17-2-1-0) who top the standings. The Rockets (9-9-1-1)remained in sixth place.
“We knew (the Rockets) were better than their record and we were prepared,” said Cougars head coach Tyler Brough. “(Sunday’s loss), that’s falling in love with ourselves. We played a great game (Saturday), a solid 60-minute game where I thought up and down our lineup we were solid and I let them know that and I think it got to their heads. They thought Kelowna was going to mail it in today and we didn’t show up.” — see BLAZERS, page 11