The Thunder Cats have celebrated victory on the ice twice this past week.
On Oct. 19, the team crushed the Grand Forks Border Bruins 5-3. Berkley Gross scored the winning goal on the power-play with his fifth of the season at 15:14 of the third period. Gross had two other goals, as did Brendan Calahasen. Goalie Brendan Smith made 36 saves.
Then on Tuesday evening, a tight game against the Golden Rockets ended 2-1. Daniel O’Handley scored twice for the Thunder Cats, including the shootout winner. In the first period, he opened the scoring at 9:19 with his first goal in the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League, then was the eighth and final shooter in the shootout. Smith was hard at work for the team once again, saving 47 shots and adding another eight saves in the shootout.
Head coach and general manager Geordie Wudrick has been working on the team’s power-play, which he felt struggled at the start of the season.
Wudrick said they are seeing some success and the percentage is improving – now at 13 per cent.
“The big things for us too is cleaning up our defensive zone and getting back to pucks a little bit quicker and trying to make easy, simple plays out of our zone,” he said. “I think some of our results, we haven’t had too many wins, but some of the games have been a little bit closer than maybe it seems in the standings.”
Wudrick considers goalies Smith and Jacob Burnside as the backbone of the team.
He was particularly excited to add Smith to the roster, who had tried out for the Melville Millionaires last year while he was an assistant coach.
“I knew he was a quality young man, so when I saw that he was available, it was an opportunity we didn’t want to pass up even with another 2004 goalie. He’s been excellent,” said Wudrick. “He’s been playing a lot of hard match-ups.”
Cheer on the Thunder Cats at the next home game on Sunday, Oct. 27 at the Johnny Bucyk Arena, starting at 3 p.m.