Petes win streak this past week gives fans some hope
It’s been largely a season of peaks and valleys for the Petes so far in the early season. The year started out with a hot streak and the team finding themselves in the CHL top 10 rankings for the second consecutive season. A decline followed, bringing the Petes back down to Earth and one game above .500 but this past weekend showed many promising signs with three consecutive wins.
The number of fans in the stands has fluctuated along with the team’s performance. Attendance early in the season is typically lower than it is down the stretch drive but it was nice to see a full arena on Thursday night for Faith Night.
Faith Night, featuring the Humboldt Broncos chaplain was a rousing success, not only filling the rink but filling it with largely young, loud, enthusiastic fans.
Premier Doug Ford’s presence the previous Thursday didn’t have the same impact in terms of number of fans in the stands and his pairing with Special Olympics seemed rather curious.
A day before his appearance, his government announced they would grant the OHL’s wishes and protect club teams by declaring players amateur athletes, ensuring his government would be on the league’s side against the upcoming challenge being brought forward seeking to declare junior players as employees, who would therefore be entitled to benefits such as minimum wage.
Ford’s appearance in Peterborough was followed up by a series of other MPPs appearing in cities across the OHL, revealing it all as the political tour it was.
While that attempt to work the Premier into the night’s festivities may have fallen flat, the Petes recent efforts interacting with fans across the ocean in England has done anything but.
This fan base has been prominent in devouring any Petes social media content related to their own Liam Kirk all season long but this past weekend really brought it to the forefront, as Kirk himself emerged with five goals over the weekend.
The Petes’ “bloody brilliant” tweets about Kirk’s “reyt goals” and looking for other ways to work the unique Yorkshire dialect into further descriptions generated great engagement on both sides of the Atlantic.
Of course, none of that would have mattered if the team wasn’t performing on the ice and it was a reassuring weekend in many regards. The Petes saw previously slumping forwards, including Kirk and Semyon DerArguchintsev, bust out with big offensive performances. Nick Robertson returned, hopefully for good this time, with a dominant five-point performance.
The weekend also saw major contributions from both goaltenders, including strong rebound performances after a tough weekend for Hunter Jones and Tye Austin picking up his first OHL win.
Finally, Max Grondin earned his first OHL hat trick and now has five goals in 10 games with the Petes, which combined with his strong faceoff work is making that early season trade look like a win.
The OHL season is a long one and there will be ups and downs, wins and losses on and off the ice, but weekends like this past one give fans more reason to believe — or have faith — in this year’s version of the Petes.