Sometimes you just have a bad day.
We’ve all had them, that lousy day at work where nothing seems to go right and you just wish you were anywhere else doing anything else.
Unfortunately the Guelph Storm had to stick around for the entire 60 minutes at the Sleeman Centre Friday night, even if much of the crowd didn’t as the Owen Sound Attack completely dominated their gracious hosts to the tune of an 8-1 victory.
It started bad and just got worse.
“Right from the opening face off I felt that we couldn’t generate anything and they spent the whole night in our zone,” said a deflated Storm coach Jarrod Skalde.
“We chased the game all night long. We chased the game and when you do that you take penalties. All around, just not a good night for our group,” he said.
Nobody escaped the stench on this night. Even little-used fourth-line centre Barret Kirwin took two bad penalties and back-up goaltender Liam Herbst gave up two goals on nine shots in a third period mop-up appearance.
Givani Smith took three minors, Liam Stevens got a game misconduct for charging Attack goalie Michael McNiven, Owen Sound scored four power play goals … well, you get the picture.
Again, the Storm fell behind early, battled penalty trouble and had dealing with the adversity of the moment.
“It’s the immaturity of the group as a whole,” Skalde said of the team’s difficulties when it gets behind.
You can’t go off the deep end every time your team, particularly a team that’s trying to rebuild, has a bad night, something Skalde seemed to agree with.
“There’s been nights after a loss we’ve been very firm (in the dressing room). I think tonight we have to sit on this one, regroup tomorrow (at practice) and see what we need to do tomorrow and get ready for Sunday,” Skalde said.
Guelph trailed 2-0 after the first and 6-1 after two.
The Attack’s Nick Suzuki had two goals and three assists and Kevin Hancock had a hat trick to lead the onslaught.
Guelph’s lone goal came in the second period courtesy of Isaac Ratcliffe, which made it 3-1 at the time.
Guelph is back at it Sunday afternoon when the Kingston Frontenacs visit in the annual Teddy Bear Toss game that starts at 2 p.m.
