Last Game of '08...Canes Host Brandon Tonight

The Hurricanes will be looking to leave the 2008 portion of their schedule on a positive note tonight as they host the Brandon Wheat Kings at the Enmax Centre. The Canes' have dropped their past 3 games, including a 2-1 loss to Edmonton at home on Sunday. Lethbridge played better than Saturday, but had trouble beating Torrie Jung in the Edmonton goal. They'll be looking to get back on track this evening, a good test against a conference rival.

I thought the effort Sunday was much better than the previous night, a 6-1 loss to Kootenay. The team knew it had to come out with more fire given the performance the night before. You can't fault goalie Michael Tadjdeh on the two goals he let in Sunday. They were perfectly placed shots by the Edmonton players. The Canes' though lost two players to injury in that game. Garrett Taylor and Austin Fyten both left the ice and never returned. The two are not expected to play this evening and how long they'll be out isn't known. Lethbridge is already down 5 players for various reasons, so to lose two more would really put some added pressure on the rest of the team.

The Hurricanes are now 4 games above .500 with the Oil Kings just 4 points back trying to catch the Canes' for 8th spot. On the flip side, Lethbridge is only 6 points back of 3rd place Medicine Hat and one back of Brandon. These next few games are very important for Lethbridge. A chance to catch a few teams and stay ahead of Edmonton in the process. It looks like the battle for positioning will come down to last weekend of the season like this past year.

After tonight, the schedule doesn't get any easier for the Hurricanes. They're off to Saskatoon January 1st, PA on the 2nd, and Swift Current Saturday. Those are 3 of 15 games schedule for the month of January for Lethbridge........7 at home and 8 on the road. The Canes' won't have Zach Boychuk, Juha Metsola, and Alex Therieau back for another week or so and when it comes to the injured players it could be that long or longer before they return to the line-up. Yes, Lethbridge is short-handed right now, but they have to keep chugging along the best they can. This is not going to be an easy stretch for this team over the next two weeks. They will simply have to work to get a win here and there. Even Coach Michael Dyck said on our pre-game show the other night, nothing will come easy for this team. They'll have to work hard from start to finish and will need to see a lot from the likes of Sceviour, Ashton, and King.

Tonight's game is a 7 o'clock versus Brandon. The pre-game show on CJOC at 6:30.