The North Coast Nightmares suffered a couple of tough losses to start the season at the Northern Exposure tournament in Prince George last month – but they’re looking forward to a rematch against Quesnel’s Gold Pain City, the first in a best of three series sure to be a highlight of the season.
The Prince George invitational saw the Terrace team fall to the Tournament City Deadlines from Kamloops in the first bout of the tourney, and then get knocked out by Gold Pain.
“Was a bit disappointing, we wanted to get to game three,” said head coach Chris “Skimo” Thomas. “But it didn’t hit too hard, the team is very optimistic and in good spirits.”
Thomas said the overall experience was excellent and gave the team an opportunity to try out different game strategies involving the roster’s mix of veteran players and rookies.
“We’ve got a number of players that have been around for a few years and a number that are quite new, first time skating or second time skating. It’s tough to know the best way to incorporate them into a game especially when we’re playing a team with a very high level of play.”
But the team is feeling confident about the upcoming rematch bout in Quesnel this weekend, April 11, and the first home bout, at the Terrace Sportsplex in May, also against Quesnel.
“Quesnel is fairly close to our level of play,” he said. “We’re looking for victory.
“We have noticed that our team’s endurance is quite high,” he said. “We plan to capitalize on that. Our late game is really good but obviously we can’t wait until the end of the game to start winning. So we’ve been working hard on strategies to beat them at the start of the jam.”
He said it’s nice to have a team to continually play – and that the fans will benefit from the series.
“Great team to play with, we have good parties and socialization after too,” he said.
“We learn from each other after the games just as much as during the games.”