The North Bay Battalion dropped a 3-1 decision to the Sarnia Sting on Thursday night at Memorial Gardens.
Coach Ryan Oulahen says they came out slow in the first ten minutes and weren’t ready to take charge of the game.
“When we got into the second period, the last 40 minutes we had a lot of good looks. A lot of really good grit,” he says. “Loved our last 20 [minutes]. We fell short because we fell behind and it’s happening too many times right now. We have to fix our starts and I think that will help us going forward.”
Sarnia scored powerplay goals in both the first and second periods, before rookie defenceman Kent Greer answered back with a powerplay goal for the Troops in the third.
“Pretty nice intangibles by him and Ryder Carey,” says Oulahen. “The two 16 year olds, wow, it’s like in the last 10 minutes trying to get them out as much as possible because they just have that knack and really good play on the powerplay goal obviously.”
The Sting then tallied into an empty net with four seconds left to secure the victory.
It’s a short turnaround for the Battalion, who travel to Brantford Friday night to take on the Bulldogs.
“They’re a really good hockey team and [we’ll] get on the road and try to grease it out a little bit,” Oulahen says. “You always like when you don’t have a great outcome to get right back on the saddle and the next night try to redeem yourself, so I do like that factor.”
North Bay’s next game at Memorial Gardens is Sunday at 2 pm against the Sudbury Wolves.
Meantime, if there’s a silver lining to the Troops’ loss to Sarnia Thursday night, it’s actually pink.
The Battalion hosted their Paint the Rink Pink fundraising event in support of Kevin Oschefski’s walk for the cure, which took place earlier this month, raising funds and awareness for breast cancer.
A total of $12,775.55 was raised.
The Battalion wore pink warm-up jerseys which were auctioned off plus there was a ‘chuck-a-puck’ fundraiser during the second intermission.
Oschefski’s 129 km walk from the Northeast Cancer Centre in Sudbury to North Bay has now raised over $63,000.
