Coach sees room for improvement

The Mount Royal men’s hockey team faced a stern test this past weekend as they faced the NAIT Ooks in a home-and-home series.

Friday night’s home opener at Flames Community Arenas was a tightly contested affair that had little scoring and great goaltending. The Cougar’s starting netminder Brent Bothwell was forced to leave the game just four minutes into the second period with a groin injury, and was replaced by Justin Cote who played brilliantly in relief, stopping all 24 shots he faced.

The Cougars, whose only goal on this night came from a Joe Vetere deflection during a first period powerplay, didn’t look overly sharp as they narrowly escaped with a 1-0 victory.

Cote was one of the lone bright spots for the Cougars, who appeared lacklustre from the opening drop of the puck.

When asked if he could attribute the slow start to some early season rust, Head Coach Jean LaForest made no excuses.

“These guys are grown men. With kids, you’d say ‘yeah’, but these guys played six pre-season games, and there’s really no excuse,” said LaForest.

While the Cougars will gladly take the win, they’ll need to be much better in the future if they want to be known as one of the conference’s top teams.

The team had a chance for redemption on Saturday night, and didn’t live up to the expectations.

The Cougars came out flat to start the game, and never really seemed to recover as mental mistakes and uninspired play led to the Cougars’ first loss of the season.

Justin Cote started in net for the Cougars, but couldn’t find the magic of the previous night, allowing three goals on 29 shots.

The Ooks came out strong in the first, and NAIT’s Steven Pratt scored two goals less than two minutes apart in the second period en route to a 3-0 victory.

Frustrations boiled over as the Cougars took numerous penalities, and were unable to build any momentum. Ooks goaltender Greame Harrington turned away all 20 Cougar shots, building on his strong play from the previous night.

Head Coach Jean Laforest attributed poor clock management and an overall lack of intensity to the loss.

“I wasn’t pleased with the lacklustre play on Friday, and I was even less pleased about our effort on Saturday. We didn’t play with the intensity we needed, and we made too many mental errors,” said Laforest.

The Cougars (2-1-1) will look to rebound from a disappointing weekend when they face the Concordia Thunder next weekend in a home-and-home series. Cougars goaltender Justin Cote will return to face his old team in a rematch of last year’s ACAC semi final that saw the Thunder upset the Cougars behind Cote’s strong play.

Game time for the Cougars is set for 7:30 p.m. this Friday, October 22nd at Flames Community Arenas.