The Cariboo Cougars had no answer for Gage Goncalves who put on a show at Kin 1 thanks to a five-goal performance giving the Fraser Valley Thunderbirds a convincing 7-2 victory, snapping the Cougars 13-game unbeaten streak.
The T-Birds blitzed the Cougars out of the gate on Sunday who bombarded goaltender Ryan Buchan for an early 3-0 lead after the first period.
“The start wasn’t good enough,” says Cougars Associate Coach RJay Berra. “I think right from the get go they wanted it, credit to them they worked really hard and I think from the first period on we didn’t match that and when we did make our adjustments in the second we already dug ourselves a little bit of a hole.”
The start to the second period was nearly identical as the first, only this time, Cariboo lost the opening draw while on the power-play and gave up a breakaway goal to Will Dow for a commanding 4-0 lead.
“Up front we didn’t have enough and on the back end we didn’t have enough, we didn’t help Buchan and failed to pay attention to detail. When you do that wrong it snowballs and it ends up in the back of your net,” added Berra.
The defending BCMML champion Cougars last loss was opening weekend against the Valley Hawks just over two months ago.
Berra and Cougars understood the team would drop a game eventually but would have like to have seen it happen a much different way.
“Anytime you have a streak like ours, eventually there is a popping point on your bubble, I think every team hopes when there streak ends it usually happens in a hard-fought overtime loss or a one-goal game where you felt you deserved a better outcome but today we didn’t give ourselves much of a chance.”
Cariboo remains in first place in the BCMML over the Valley West Hawks.
The Cougars welcome the Vancouver NW Giants next Saturday and Sunday from Kin 1.
Puck drop for both games is 7 PM and 10 AM.