Their offense was nearly unstoppable this past weekend on home ice.
The Cariboo Cougars combined for 20 goals in a 20-hour span against the league-last Greater Vancouver Canadians at Kin 1 Arena, winning by scores of 8-0 on Saturday (Feb. 8) and 12-1 on Sunday morning (Feb. 9).
The Major Midget Cats hosted its annual Mental Health Awareness Night on Saturday afternoon, donning green sweaters, green laces and green tape on their sticks while showing support for athletes and local residents struggling on a day-to-day basis.
Prince George’s team was led by Alex Ochitwa with eight points, including a six-point performance yesterday with five assists.
Six points each came from Captain John Herrington and Brennan Bott, who recorded his first hat trick of the season in Sunday’s victory.
“It’s nice,” said Bott in a team release.
“I couldn’t do it without my linemates, Herrington and Ochitwa. Things were just working. We’ve been playing together for basically the whole year – things were clicking and we all had a big game.”
Goaltender Kenny Gerow was responsible for Saturday’s 8-0 shut out by stopping all 14 shots.
Final score 8-0 for the Cougars. Kenny Gerow with the shutout receives our Hard Hat award and Nico Myatovic is our Reg Dunlop Player of the game, great work guys! #DefendTheNorth #CaribooCougars @BCHockey_Source @BCHockey_U18 @PGMatters @ckpgnews @mypgnow @Hartley_Miller pic.twitter.com/v93kq7i5Bt
— Cariboo Cougars (@cariboocougars) February 9, 2020
Jackson Powers of the North Central Midget AA Bobcats was called up in place of the injured Jordan Fairlie and was put between the pipes on Sunday.
He went on to stop 15 shots for his first win as a starting netminder for Cariboo.
Head Coach Tyler Brough was pleased with the strong outing, claiming it gave his players a lot of confidence with only six games remaining on the calendar before playoffs.
“It’s a shot in the arm for our guys – we need it,” he said.
“We’ve been struggling to get results. We’ve had some good efforts, some not-so-good efforts. We knew what the [Canadians] were, we knew what the standings were coming in. I didn’t want to give them a chance to be in this weekend, and the boys didn’t let them. It was a great effort by the guys.”
The Cats are now 22-10-1-1 in the BC Major Midget League standings and are now tied for fourth with the Vancouver North East Chiefs, who have two games at hand.
Bott is hoping his team can muster an undefeated streak to earn home-ice advantage in the postseason.
“We need to win out so we get a higher ranking going into playoffs,” Bott said. “Then in playoffs, hopefully, we can win another championship.”
Fortunately, the Cougars’ remaining 2019-20 regular-season games are all on home ice, hosting the Kootenay Ice this Family Day weekend, Feb. 15 and 16, at Kin 1 Arena at 4:30 p.m. and 10:30 a.m. respectively.
