Cubs look to continue undefeated start to season

By JAMES TUBB on October 18, 2023.

The Medicine Hat Cubs are off to a perfect start to their 2023-24 season, not that they’re thinking about it.

The Cubs have started their HJHl season with a 7-0 record, picking up three road wins over the weekend to lead the league in wins and points (14). It’s a start that head coach and general manager Randy Wong jokes is exactly how they drew up their year.

He says their success has come from the team finding ways to win in games they shouldn’t have.

“In different parts of each game, we may have been behind a goal or two early in the game, late in the game and they just find ways to win, and that’s pretty exciting to watch,” Wong said. “It’s very important to learn you can figure out how to win games from behind. As you do it, you gain more confidence every time you have to do it, not that you want to make it a habit. But certainly to be able to do it speaks volumes for the character.”

All three of the Cubs’ wins over the weekend came in different fashions. Friday night they blew out the Ponoka Stampeders 12-3, Saturday’s 4-1 victory over the Red Deer Vipers came off a four-goal third period and Sunday’s win, 5-2 over the Sylvan lake Wranglers, saw the Cubs score four times in the last 40 minutes for the win.

This early string of success, with all but one win coming on the road, is a source of momentum Wong hopes can continue as they get further into the season and tougher challenges arise.

“It’s important to establish confidence, it makes you believe the systems are good, you’re good, the team personnel is good, it just gives you confidence you’ve got good teammates,” Wong said. “If we keep doing the same things, we should continue to have positive results.

“Thirty per cent of our road games are completed in the first three weeks of the season, that sounds pretty cool and we’ve got wins to show for it. You get into playoff hockey, you have to learn how to win in the other team’s barn. In the regular season, we’re showing we can do it, but it doesn’t bother us. It’s another degree of confidence, playing on the road isn’t an issue, you can play from behind and it’s not an issue. So all those are kind of preparing us for down the road, later in the second half as we kind of get into the playoff run.”

While they’ve had this early success and want to build off it, Wong says the seven-game winning streak is not a talking point within the team and he says they aren’t focused on continuing a winning streak but continuing their good habits.

“It’s a one game at a time attitude and play in the moment and forget the last game attitude, it doesn’t mean anything today so we don’t really talk about it and we just worry about who we’re playing the next game and prepare accordingly,” Wong said. “We’re trying to play a brand of hockey where it doesn’t matter who we play. Doesn’t matter who you’re playing, Ponoka or you’re playing Sylvan Lake, you have to prepare the same. You want the guys to execute the same plays. We think we’re a fairly fast team so we want to play with pace. The outcome of it is irrelevant, but we know if we do the good things we’re going to be on top more times than not.”

The Cubs have been led offensively by defenceman Jamal Shaw, who has put up seven goals and 12 points in seven games. The 20-year-old has two game-winnings goals already and his production, alongside fellow D-man Keynan Cairs (three goals, 10 points) has further propelled the Cubs.

“Confidence is everything for those guys right now, they’ve got a little bit of jump in their stride, they’re playing good defence as well and they’re contributing on offence,” Wong said. “I suspect our forwards will get going there, this weekend showed that a bit. We have a few guys starting to roll now. Just having those two defencemen, having that offence on the back end, it’s been really good this year and was something we we’re really missing the last two seasons. Getting that, Josh Aitken scored a few goals, on the back end too, we have a different dynamic from the point that we haven’t shown teams in the last couple of years.”

The Cubs head into a challenging weekend in their own South division, hosting the Cochrane Generals on Friday. They face another North division opponent on Saturday, hosting the Mountainview Colts who are tied for first place with Sylvan Lake. Medicine Hat is facing Cochrane for the first time since eliminating them in the first round of the playoffs last season.

Friday’s game is at 8:30 p.m. and Saturday’s gets underway at 6 p.m., both games at the Kinplex.

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