It obviously wasn’t a great performance on Saturday night for the Comox Valley Glacier Kings to say the least. The 11 goals were the most they’ve given up in a game and the 6 goals in the first period was the most they’ve given up in a single period all season. In fact, the 4 goals they allowed in the second period was more than they allowed in any period previous to Saturday’s game. The 4 shots in the first period was the fewest all season, the 18 shots were their lowest game total this year. The good thing is that it was just one game and they can move on from it. The club has progressed too much since the start of the season to let this setback hurt them in the long run. It does still sting however. The thing that was disappointing was that the game was basically over by the midway point of the first period. Even offensively talented teams can only dig themselves a hole so big. A defensively-minded team is hard pressed to comeback, especially when playing the top club in the league.

Just as a refresher, the score was 6-1 just 11:48 into the contest. The Glacier Kings did play better in the third period but it was way too late to mount any kind of a comeback, especially to a squad that has only lost one game all season. Head coach/GM Curtis Toneff said it wasn’t a good night, “It was a game where after the first 5 minutes, it was over. That hadn’t happened to us this year. We ended up on the penalty kill and I tried to make some adjustments to suit our night better and I failed at that as a coach. They scored two and it’s tough as a team to get behind a team like that but we did score a goal to make it 2-1 but after that the wheels fell off. Our effort and our attitude wasn’t close to where it needed to be against a team like that. It showed by the end of the period and at the end of the game with the score. These things happen over the course of a season.” Hopefully those things don’t happen too much more. Remember Comox was playing well until Saturday’s game (4-1 in their last 5 games).

As the season has gone along, it seems that two teams have risen to the top. Peninsula (15-1-1-0) and Westshore (15-2-1-0) while everyone else is in the rearview mirror in the standings. Curtis had told me in the past that any team can beat any team this year but with the Panthers and Wolves way ahead of everyone, you can’t help but wonder about the parity. I asked him if he thought that they were in a league of their own and then the other 9 teams were in a different grouping. Toneff disagreed, “No I don’t think so. We’ve proved that we can compete with both of those teams that you eluded to, we showed that we can compete with them for two periods. If we can compete with them for two periods, then we can compete with them for three periods. For us to be successful, we have to be at full tilt. The difference between those teams is that they can be average some nights, we cannot.” Looking at past games, the Glacier Kings handed the Panthers their only regulation loss of the season back on September 28th and the Yeti were up by 2 goals on the Wolves on October 22nd before having a collapse. So yes, they have proved that they can play with the higher calibre teams but it’s like the coach says, you need to play 60 minutes against these guys.

So it was back to practice this week. I had asked the coach how he has been and he said that it he feels better now after a couple of days of frustration. It’s easy to fall into a trap after one disappointing game. Just look at my post after the 11-1 loss, I felt like it was doomsday for the club but honestly, it was just one game. With that being said, changes need to be made. You can move past the game but you also have to learn from it and not hide from it. The bench boss seemed to be in pretty good spirits. He talked about practice and maybe switching things up, “Just back to basics, systems refresh. Our rush coverage was rotten the other night. It was an effort based thing and with regards to ‘X’s’ and ‘O’s’, it’s November and maybe time for a systems refresh. I thought after the game that I’m not going to overanalyze it. You’re never as good as you think you are and you’re never as bad as you think you are.” I’m guessing it would be a minor tweaking of the systems and personnel assignments. I really couldn’t see a major overhaul based on one game. But maybe having a new face here and there and different responsibilities, it might be good. A couple of months of the same thing could get stale and easy to be scouted by other opponents.

Speaking of opponents, Nanaimo should be a good test for the Glacier Kings to see how they bounce back after an embarrassing loss. The Bucs are currently in first place in the North Division and even better at home. The reason it should be a good test is because Comox Valley knows they can play with these guys despite their good record. How do they know? Well, because they beat the Buccaneers back on September 27th at the Sports Centre. A win at the NIC on Thursday and that last game can be tossed out. That’s the great thing about sports, you can be so down one day but a couple days later things are good again.

Darryl Skender