UPCOMING HOME GAMES
Tuesday, January 6 – Drumheller Dragons @ 7 PM
Saturday, January 10 – Calgary Canucks @ 7 PM
When this year’s Alberta Junior Hockey League schedule was released back in June 2014, the Canmore Eagles knew that they would be starting out with a pair of very difficult road games to begin the New Year.
Little did they know how difficult it would truly be.
The Eagles, who had an impressive 5-2 record for the month of December, opened the 2015 portion of their AJHL schedule in ugly fashion as they absorbed a 9-0 drubbing by the defending AJHL champion Spruce Grove Saints on Friday night and followed it up with a 7-2 loss to the Camrose Kodiaks on Saturday night in Camrose.
The Saints currently lead the AJHL Northern Division with an impressive 32-6-3 record, while the Kodiaks lead the Southern Division with a 32-5-2 record. With the two losses, Canmore now sports a record of 18-20-1.
“We knew this would be a particularly difficult road trip to open the New Year, but nonetheless, I am still very disappointed in our overall performance as a team,” said Eagles Head Coach and General Manager Andrew Milne, whose team was outscored 16-2 and outshot 85-40 during the two games. “We faced two very elite teams but we simply didn’t rise to the occasion. We can compete much better than we showed. For whatever reason, we were outworked and outhustled in both games. We simply had too many passengers who were just along for the ride and that is unacceptable at this stage of the season.”
The Eagles will try to regain their mojo with a pair of home games this week as they will host the Drumheller Dragons (22-14-5) on Tuesday, Jan. 6, and the Calgary Canucks (13-21-5) on Saturday Jan. 10. Both games will start at 7 PM.
“We quickly have to regroup, put the past weekend behind us and get ready for a couple of important home games this week,” said Milne. “If there is one lesson we learned from the past weekend, it’s that we have to work a lot harder in all aspects of the game. If the boys thought that things were going to come easy for them, they learned a very hard lesson this weekend. Going forward, we need to put some wins together and regain our confidence.”
The Canadian Junior Hockey League trading deadline is set for Saturday, January 10.
