Unacceptable. Terrible effort. Arrogant play. Cockiness. Everything you don’t want to see from a hockey club.
Canmore Eagles head coach Andrew Milne spared no negative adjectives when describing his team’s effort in an 8-5 AJHL loss to the Olds Grizzlies Tuesday (Sept. 24) at Alex Kaleta arena, including several expletives we can’t print in the Outlook.
“It was horrendous. We snapped on the guys Monday because I felt it was a country club attitude. Tonight you saw a team that thought they’d just be given the game. That’s absolute garbage,” Milne said.
Coming off a 4-2 loss in Fort McMurray, Sept. 21, the Eagles have given up 12 goals in their past two games. Olds appeared ripe for the picking, as they had dropped five games in a row before the Eagles handed them a win.
“We were soft in every aspect of the game. Our compete level wasn’t there. Right from Cam Barnes all the way out,” Milne said.
The team now must regroup before the AJHL Showcase weekend in Spruce Grove (Sept. 26-27), which attracts scouts from across North America.
“There is some complacency in our dressing room which I can’t believe with us carrying 26 guys. We have two quick turnaround games,” Milne said.
The coach left Barnes in for all eight goals, as he wasn’t happy with how his goaltender competed.
“He has to compete as well. I don’t think Cam was competitive on some of those goals. No one else was allowed to get out of there. It’s embarrassing for Cam, but it’s embarrassing for us to watch.”
The Eagles looked the better team through the first 20 minutes, when Luke Simpson and Jeremy Margeson scored to tie the game 2-2. Austen Hebert gave the Eagles a 3-2 lead with an early second period goal, and the home team switched on the cruise control.
Olds responded by scoring four quick goals in four minutes with relative ease. The Eagles stopped skating, backchecking and began turning the puck over consistently. By the third, the teams traded goals as Simpson scored his second of the match and Kyle Pauls added his first of the year.
By then, the game was out of reach. Eagles captain Nils Moser switched from hockey player to hulk, racking up 18 penalty minutes and a game misconduct for punching a Grizzlies player in the face from the penalty box. Milne doesn’t believe the league will review the incident and said the Olds forward should never have been that close to the box.
“Our frustration level was through the roof. Moser expects us to compete harder out there. He can’t comprehend laziness and that got to him,” Milne said. “As a former player, your frustration goes through the roof. It’s the fact we had soft, lack of effort mistakes that drive you crazy.”
Milne said there will be plenty of lineup changes for the two showcase games against Whitecourt tonight and the Calgary Canucks on Friday, where students go hunting for scholarships. This year, Trey Phillips, who has seven points in six games for the Eagles this year, has already earned a Tier I scholarship with the Vermont Catamounts of the East Coast Athletic Division. The school has a rich hockey history, as its alumni includes NHLers such as Patrick Sharp, Victor Stalberg, Martin St. Louis and Tim Thomas.
The loss evens the Eagles record to 3-3 on the season.
