Tough Travel Day Ends Trip with L in Kamloops
By Doyle Potenteau – Kelowna Daily Courier (Click here for Courier’s web site)
Sunday was quite the long day of travel for the Kelowna Rockets, having ventured from Victoria to Kamloops.
The Blazers then made it even longer by skating to a 3-2 victory over the Rockets that night. The loss pushed Kelowna‘s winless streak to six games, though the team did salvage a point in a 4-3 overtime loss to Victoria on Saturday night. It was also Kelowna‘s fourth loss in five days.
At first glance, you‘d think the coaching staff would be pressing the panic button.
Thankfully, they aren‘t. After all, they, like all savvy hockey fans, realize this is a young team and growing pains are expected. For now.
“There‘s no point in panicking,” Kelowna head coach Ryan Huska said. “In all these games, we had a chance to win. We‘re just doing something each night – whether it be penalties or a silly mistake here or there by different players – it‘s a matter of us gaining experience and also understanding that it‘s not OK for us to not win these games.”
Colin Smith, Brendan Ranford and J.C. Lipon scored for Kamloops (7-2-0-0), which won for the third time in as many nights. The Blazers beat the Winterhawks 5-4 in overtime in Portland on Friday, then beat visiting Prince George 3-0 on Saturday.
Colton Sissons and Damon Severson replied for Kelowna (3-5-1), which also lost a weekend double dip in Victoria, falling 7-5 on Friday and 4-3 in overtime on Saturday.
Cole Cheveldave stopped 23 shots for the Blazers, while Adam Brown made 25 saves for the Rockets, who, after a 1-1 first period, trailed 3-1 after 40 minutes.
“The second is where they scored their goals, but I thought we were the better team in the first and third,” said Huska.
As for Sunday‘s travels, the Rockets got up at 6:40 a.m. after Saturday‘s defeat to catch the nine a.m. ferry, which was followed by a 90-minute ferry ride, lunch in Chilliwack at and, finally, arrival in Kamloops at 3:30 p.m.
“Every team will have some travel days in our league, and this was one of them for us,” said Huska. “I thought we looked fatigued, but that may have had something to do with the week of practice we had.”
