The McLean & Dickey Orillia Terriers were shell shocked by the Alliston Hornets on Saturday night. The Hornets stung the Terriers 8-1 in front of 175 local hockey fans at Rotary Place.
The loss, on the heels Orillia's dominant 9-2 win over Huntsville on the road Friday night, moves the Jr. C Terriers back to fourth in the Provincial Junior Hockey League's North Carruthers Division after previously leading the pack in late November.
Following Saturday night's lopsided loss, the Terriers locker room remained closed for nearly an hour.
“We were doing a little soul searching. Basically, everybody had input on why our effort was so bad tonight. It wasn’t finger-pointing but more or less understanding what it takes to win these big games,” said Terriers coach Dalyn Telford.
“It wasn’t the result that I’m so concerned with tonight, it was the effort. And we’ve always prided ourselves on being the hardest working team in the division and we got away from that tonight," said the coach.
Despite the tough loss, the Terriers season can be considered a success as the team approaches the Christmas break. The local squad sports a record of 14-5-1 and are just three points back of first place in their division.
“We came in with low expectations and right now we are competing for the top spot and our expectations have risen,” said team captain Broderick Black.
After starting the season with a 9-1 record, The Terriers have a .500 winning percentage in their last 10 games.
“Our effort levels need to get back up, and we need to beat these teams at the top of the standings and get back to our systems,” Black said.
“Our expectation is to get to the finals, so we hope to finish the regular season in the top three and then make that big push.”
Black says the recent spike in COVID-19 cases and cancellations around other sports leagues is worrisome.
“It’s something that is always in the back of our minds. Tonight could have been our last game for a while, it’s something we just can’t control,” he said.
The Terriers best player up front so far this season has been Josh Brown. The right-winger leads the Terriers with 18 goals and 11 assists and has 29 points.
“I’ve been doing my best to help this team win games, that’s where I excel best,” he said.
During the rocky last month for the Terriers, Brown has been trying to kick-start the team's other playmakers.
“It doesn’t really matter who is putting the pucks in the net. We just need to get things going again,” he said.
Brown admits that it feels good to lead the team in points, and he’s embraced the role of being a goal scorer.
“I’d like to finish as a top point-getter in the division. I haven’t done that before in my career. But the main goal is to get our team into the top three in the division as that would give us our best chance to make a deep playoff run,” he said.
“We need to get back to basics and get back to where we were at the beginning of the season," said the talented forward. "We’ve kind of gotten away from that, but if we could get back on track, we would have a good chance to go far in the playoffs.”
Leading the team on the blue line this season has been defenceman Isaiah Philip. The first-year Terrier is second on the team in points with 11 goals and 15 assists for a total of 26 points.
“I play with some pretty good players which has really led to my success, and it’s why I have as many points as I do,” he said.
Philip says it means a lot to him to contribute to his team's early-season success.
“It shows my place on this team, I know the team has high expectations for me and obviously it’s really nice to have that support behind you," he said.
While Philip has been a points machine this season, he wants to improve on keeping pucks out of the net.
“We want to finish in first place, and I want to do anything I can to help us achieve that. At the beginning of the year, we were leading in goals against, and obviously, that number has been going up slowly,” he said.
“We need to get back to what was working before and get us back on track.”
The Terriers will head to Schomberg on Thursday to take on the third-place Cougars. The Terriers will return to the Rotary Place in the New Year when they take on Stayner on Jan. 8 at 7:30 p.m.