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The Cold Lake Ice take on the Frog Lake T-Birds tonight on home ice, it’s hard to predict a winner after the first two weeks of play in the league. “I’ve talked to a few coaches,” says Ice Head Coach, Scott Hood, “it’s whatever team shows up and works hard with a little bit of skill. It’s just a matter of consistency.”
The Ice enter week 3 of the NEAJBHL sixth in the standings with a 2-3-0 record. A lot of teams are gunning for the Ice, ready for a new leader, Hood says he’s not intimated. The coach knows his squad has the talent, it’s just a matter of working for it. “If you don’t show up, it could be 8-nothing for Frog Lake. We need to show up and play our game, work hard and good things will happen.”
The Ice have been plagued by penalties to open the year, 202 minutes in the first game against the Canadiens, then another 13 minors in the second match-up. “About half the game we were killing,” it’s never good to spend that much time on the penalty kill says Hood, “we did a pretty good job but we gotta stay outta the box. These teams will kill us if we take a lot of penalties.”
Discipline is a hard lesson to learn, a lesson Hood has been hammering his squad with, “we bring it up every game, every practice. We were up 7-6 against Killiam and one of our guys took a penalty, late in the game, and they tied it up 7-7.” The Ice ended up losing that game, Saturday October 11th, 8-7. “Everyone has played hockey long enough, they know what they can and can’t do.”
Hood is excited for Friday night’s game on home ice, saying the crowd really supported the squad at the home opener, “with everything that went on last year, it was a nice change for this year. It was a long weekend and people were out. They got treated to a sweet game.” It’ll be no different tonight, says Hood, “we’re gonna come to work. We got some skilled guys, we gotta stay outta the box and hopefully, we can get a streak going here. When we work hard we’re a potent team.”
Puck drops at 8:00 pm at Imperial Oil Place in Cold Lake tonight as the Ice take on the Frog Lake T-Birds.
