The Creston Valley Thunder Cats suffered their first loss of the season Saturday to the visiting Fernie Ghostriders.
Under other circumstances, the 4-2 loss would have been a win, with the Thunder Cats outshooting the Ghostriders 55-25.
“You don’t often lose a game where you outshoot the opponent by thirty,” said head coach Jeff Dubois.
But, he added, Fernie goalie Jeff Orser was “excellent.”
“At the other end of the rink, we kind of gift wrapped a couple of opportunities that one of the top players in the league, Cole Keebler, capitalized on,” Dubois said.
Fernie led the scoring with a power-play goal at 5:55 in the first period, and Alec Wilkinson tied the score five minutes later. Carson Cartwright scored Creston’s second on a power play with 3:38 remaining in the second period, but Fernie tied the score by the period’s end, and added two more in the third.
“We went into the game knowing there were a couple of players we couldn’t let determine the game on Fernie’s end. Ultimately, those two guys were the difference.”
He praised Thunder Cats forward Lien Miller-Jeannotte for creating offensive opportunities for himself, and said the line with Jack Berger, Liam Plunkett and Dylan Hogue “had a lot of energy and had some really good offensive zone shifts, and came close to scoring.”
This weekend, the Thunder Cats host the 100 Mile House Wranglers on Friday and the Columbia Valley Rockies on Saturday.
The Wranglers are a “big physical team” that beat the Kimberley Dynamiters on the weekend, said Dubois, and added that Creston is ready for the Rockies to visit.
“They look to be much improved from last year,” he said. “It looks like they’ve brought in some offensive guys who are having some success.”