Hurricanes @ Oil Kings 2pm Today

Hello from Chilly Edmonton!

This afternoon the Hurricanes will try and get back into the win column again the Edmonton Oil Kings. The team travelled here late yesterday after a Saturday afternoon practice at the Enmax Centre. This will be the 4th meeting between these two teams, with Lethbridge winning all 3 games in the season series so far. Game time today is 2pm and the pre-game show on CJOC at 1:30.

After today's game, the Canes’ will hop back on the bus and travel all the way to Regina and arrive there in the early hours of Monday morning. The Hurricanes play the Pats there Tuesday and then in Brandon Wednesday. The start times for those two games is 6pm Alberta time. That will mark the official half-way point in the season for Lethbridge. The players will then head off to visit family and friends for the Christmas holidays before returning back to Lethbridge to begin the second half of the season on the 27th against Kootenay.

Heading into today’s game Lethbridge sits with a record of 18-14-0-1. The Canes’ have dropped their last two games both by 4-3 scores to Kamloops and most recently Moose Jaw Friday night at home. The difference in that game was clearly turnovers. The Warriors managed to capitalize on Hurricane give-aways. As I’ve said before it’s nearly impossible to eliminate turnovers all together, but limiting those give-aways is important. That game also saw a lengthy delay. The puck dropped an hour and a half after the scheduled 7pm start time. A bad winter storm that blew into Lethbridge Friday into Saturday delayed the arrival of the referees. The game finally got going around 8:30. I tip my hat to the Hurricanes fans though who waited out the delay and braved the terrible weather to stick around and watch the game.

The Hurricanes still have some work to take care of before the Christmas break. Once play resumes in the second half, that’s when things for every team start to get interesting. The trade deadline is just around the corner, the stretch run to the playoffs begins, and if this season turns out to be anything like the last one, there’ll be a fierce battle for playoff positioning too. The Hurricanes will be one of those teams hoping to move up in the Eastern Conference. It should be a lot of fun to watch I’m sure!

The last Hurricanes This Week talk show for 2008 will be held Monday night at 7 on CJOC. As I’m away on the road with the team this week, Dick Gibson will host the show from Lethbridge. Our guests include Hurricanes President Brian McNaughton, Canes’ Director of Business Operations Doug Campbell, and Hurricanes Assistant GM and Director of Scouting Brad Robson. Our first show of 2009 is scheduled for January 5th.