The Cariboo Cougars weren't interested in another tension-filled game.
So, Sunday at Kin 1, they fired four first-period goals against the North Island Silvertips and eventually recorded a 7-2 win in a B.C. Hockey Major Midget League contest. On Saturday night, the Cats skated to a 3-2 come-from-behind victory.
"We hadn't really had an explosive first period and that was one of our goals," Cariboo head coach Trevor Sprague said in reference to Sunday's blowout. "It was good to see that we had the character to be able to do that, and all four of them were good goals. We were pretty happy about that as a team."
Luke Gordon, Levon Johnson, Hayden Berra and Nathan Craft staked the Cougars to their Sunday lead. Gordon struck twice more in the second period for the hat trick and Tanner Fjellstrom added a goal in the third.
Will McNamara and Jaden Schmeisser responded for the Silvertips.
Gordon's three-goal performance came after he was held pointless on Saturday night.
"I was a little frustrated about that and made up for it (Sunday)," said the 16-year-old Terrace product. "I worked hard and the puck got to me when I needed it to."
On Gordon's hat trick marker, which put the Cougars ahead 6-0, he parked himself in open ice to the left of the North Island net and received a perfect cross-ice feed from Chase Witala. Gordon was left with an open net for a target.
While Gordon was sniping for the Cougars, Cariboo goalie Jared Rathjen was holding Silvertips shooters at bay. He wasn't beaten until the final minute of the second period, the goal a power-play tally by McNamara.
Half way through the third, on the second North Island goal, Rathjen was victimized by an unlucky bounce. On the play, Schmeisser sent the puck off the boards, with the intention of dumping it into the Cariboo zone. Rathjen left his net to play the puck, which instead caromed strangely and caught the right corner of his unguarded cage.
"I thought I played well," said the 16-year-old Rathjen. "I got a lot of help from the team, a lot of help from the d-men with a lot of talk out there. It was a team effort and I thought I did my part."
Rathjen was also the winning goaltender on Saturday night and, with crease partner David Readman nursing a sprained ankle, has had four consecutive starts. All of them have resulted in victories.
"It's easy when he's back there," Gordon said. "You just always know he's going to make the stop."
In the Saturday game, the teams were tied 1-1 after two periods, the goals by Taylor Grobowski of the Silvertips and Johnson of the Cougars. In the third, brothers Chase Witala and Tyson Witala gave the Cats the go-ahead goal and insurance marker respectively.
Apparently, a pre-game lasagna cooked by grandma Donna Witala was a big factor in the positive outcome for the Cats.
"Johnson and the Witalas all live in the same house and grandma Witala is taking credit for (the win) because she baked them a lasagna and brought it over," Sprague said with a laugh.
The Cougars bumped their record to 8-4 and moved into third place in the standings, while the seventh-place Silvertips slipped to 4-6.
-- Cariboo defenceman Colton Manning played in both games after he missed the previous six because of a concussion. Berra, Mike Bell and backup goaltender Tyson Peters were in the lineup as affiliated players.
The Cougars will be in Kelowna this coming weekend for games against the Okanagan Rockets.
