Rude awakening: Cubs shut out by Copperheads in home opener

By Ryan McCracken on October 1, 2018.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com @MHNMcCracken

It was a weekend to forget for the Medicine Hat Travelodge Cubs.

Eager to prove themselves as a team to beat in the Heritage Junior Hockey League after an off-season rife with change, the Cubs came out flat in a 4-0 loss to the Coaldale Copperheads in Saturday’s home opener at the Kinplex before dropping an 8-0 blowout to the Bisons Sunday in Okotoks.

Thankfully, says Cubs captain Quinten Karg, there’s still plenty of time to work out the kinks.

“Last year we started off 3-0 and look how that turned out,” said Karg, whose Cubs are 1-3-0 following the weekend’s losses. “We’ve got a lot of building to do right now. It’s early in the year so there’s lots of time for improvement.”

The Cubs made some significant changes to their hockey operations over the summer and drew in impressive numbers for the team’s training camp before going 3-0 in the pre-season. But after scoring twice and adding an assist against Medicine Hat Saturday, Copperheads forward Christian Dees says he’s not buying into the hype.

“They haven’t changed,” said Dees. “They’re still the team they are —not the greatest.”

Karg shrugged off Dees’ post-game remark, insisting his Cubs held the pace through the latter 40 minutes after Coaldale took over a 3-0 lead through the first.

“They don’t like us at all, we don’t like them either. Of course it doesn’t surprise me that he said that,”said Karg. “We dug ourselves a hole right off the bat, but we definitely came back and I think we gave it to them in the last two periods, we just couldn’t buy a goal.”

Cubs head coach JD Gaetan says his players were clearly feeling some early jitters Saturday, but added he was pleased with the way they responded.

“The guys were definitely hard on their sticks, gripping them a little tight,”he said. “There’s positives coming out the second and third, especially the third. You look at the first 15 minutes of the period we were just all over them.”

Copperheads goaltender Nolan Berner collected a 25-save shutout, while Medicine Hat’s Brett Vanderveer stopped 35 in the loss.

“He had a great bounce-back game from Ponoka,”said Gaetan. “He mad a lot of big saves for us and none of those goals were his fault. He came in and did his job.”

The Cubs looked to rebound Sunday in Okotoks, but ran into another goaltender in Nicholas Ewanchuk and were again held out of the score column.

Okotoks’ Kody Brigs led the Bisons with a natural hat trick.

The Cubs will look for some revenge on the Copperheads Saturday in Coaldale before returning to the Kinplex to host the Airdrie Thunder on Oct. 13.

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