CHARLOTTETOWN – The Charlottetown Bulk Carriers Pride know there is no tomorrow.
The Pride faces a must-win situation on the road against the Kensington Monaghan Farms Wild in Game 5 of the best-of-seven provincial major midget hockey championship series on Saturday. The opening faceoff at Credit Union Centre in Kensington, the former Community Gardens, is set for 7:30 p.m. Charlottetown is facing a 3-1 series deficit, and will be looking to pull out their second straight road win after a 3-2 win in Game 3 to send the series back to MacLauchlan Arena on the UPEI campus in Charlottetown for Game 6 on Monday night.
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“We have to find a way to be at our best on Saturday night, give ourselves a chance to win and continue our season,” said Pride head coach Luke Beck in a phone interview with the Journal Pioneer on Thursday evening – close to 24 hours after the Wild scored four unanswered third-period goals to win Game 4 in Charlottetown 5-2.
“We thought we played a really strong first 40 minutes, and gave ourselves a good opportunity to tie the series up,” said Beck. “Unfortunately, we came out a little bit flat in the third, and when you do that against good teams they take advantage, and Kensington did that.
“We have no choice but to turn the page and turn our focus to Saturday night. . . We approach each game with a fresh start, whether it’s coming off a win or coming off a loss.”
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Positives
Beck noted that although the results have not been what the Pride had hoped for most of this series, he has seen lots of positives from his team.
“Our D is playing really strong as a six-man crew back there, we have got some real solid goaltending from Erik (MacInnis) and some timely scoring,” assessed Beck. “We are down, but we are not out.
“Our group knows we have to turn the page and focus on the next game, the same as if we had have won (Game 4). We will practise (Friday), get the legs going, feel good about ourselves and go up to Kensington.”
It was only a year ago the Pride held a 3-1 series lead, but the Wild rallied for three straight wins. The Pride is hoping they can turn that trick this year.
“We knew it was going to be a tough series,” admitted Beck. “But, as we saw last year, all you have to do is win a game. If we can find a way to win Saturday, it will give us extra confidence going back to our rink (for Game 6).”
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With the second-place Wild, who had a 26-7-2 (won-lost-overtime losses) record, finishing 15 points ahead of the fourth-place Pride (17-13-5) in the regular-season standings, Beck admits Kensington was “probably the slight favourites” coming into the series.
“They still have to close out the series,” said Beck. “We know they will be ready to go.”
The series winner will represent P.E.I. at the Atlantic major midget hockey championship in Lantz, N.S., from March 29 to April 1.
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