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Weekend mixed bag for Thunder teams

The Quesnel Thunder rep hockey teams had a bit of a tough weekend.


The Quesnel Thunder rep hockey teams had a bit of a tough weekend.

The Quesnel Atom hockey team lost a close one to Prince George Saturday at Twin Arenas.

The Thunder went up 2-0 in the first period with some hard work and team play, but then left the team play behind after Prince George scored on a breakaway to make the score 2-1 early in the second period.

“They panicked and started playing individually,” Thunder coach Gary Plamondon said.

“Our team stopped passing in the last half of the game.”

The Thunder took a few penalties in the second period that didn’t help their cause, although they did kill off a 5-on-3 powerplay, but Prince George did get a powerplay goal at 5-on-4.

Before the second period was out, Prince George scored another powerplay goal from a scramble in front of the Thunder net to take a 3-2 lead.

Despite battling back hard the Thunder could not find the back of the net in the third period.

“They tried hard,” Plamondon said.

“I thought it was a good hockey game.

“Both teams battled hard.”

The score could have been more lop-sided, but the Thunder netminders both had a great game, Plamondon said.

“Our goalies [Nathan Scofield, Brandon Peacock] did a good job,” he said.

“Nathan played the first half of the game and Brandon played the second half.”

Peacock, a Grade 5 student at Dragon Lake, took up goaltending because he likes to control the game and enjoys making saves.

“Glove saves,” Peacock said were his favourite.

The scores were not as close for the Peewee Thunder on the weekend.

Facing the Williams Lake Timberwolves, the peewee Thunder skated to a 10-2 loss, Friday at Twin Arenas, despite being the better team.

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The Thunder got off to a slow start and only picked up the pace later, when the game was pretty much out of reach.

The key, Thunder assistant coach Alan Slaney said, was not a matter of talent, but rather it was a matter of mental preparation for the game.

“They came to the rink thinking they had already lost to them,” Slaney said.

“In their head, they’re thinking they are going to lose.”

Although Slaney said he was pleased with the effort of his players, particularly in the second half of the game, he told his players they needed to be more involved in the game and come to the rink prepared to win.

“You need to participate in the game, don’t just watch the game.”

Thunder forward Matt Kuehn, agreed with his coach and admitted the game was, “not so fun.”

“If we had scored earlier in the game it could have given us energy,” Kuehn said.

Kuehn had one of Quesnel’s two goal, a wrist shot from the low slot to the glove-side of the Williams Lake netminder.

“I was in the slot and Marshall Brown made a nice pass,” Kuehn said.

“I looked for the glove-hand side and it squirted through.”

The peewee Thunder heeded their coaches’ advice and made it a closer game on Saturday, but still found themselves on the short end of 9-5 score.

Brown led the peewee Thunder with two goals and two helpers on the weekend. Brant Powell contributed a goal and three assists on the weekend and Kuehn finished with two goals.

The Bantam Thunder had a good weekend against the visiting Williams Lake Timberwolves.

The Thunder won both games Sunday against the T’Wolves, 5-2 in the morning and 5-3 in the afternoon.

The Thunder were led on the scoresheet by Ian Jarvis with three goals and two assists, as well as Rick Mack with a goal and a handful of helpers, Joel Amundsen lit the lamp and had a couple of assists, as did Jesse roach and Ryan Gagnon.

The Thunder midget squad also played host to their counterparts from Prince George and found themselves on the short end of a 6-3 score Saturday and a 5-4 score on Sunday.

Saturday, the Thunder midget team fell behind 4-1 after two periods and couldn’t catch up in the third period as both teams scored two goals.

Sunday, the Thunder had a 3-2 lead after two periods, on goals by Lane Vanderwetering, Ryan Keis and Colby Braaten.

The Prince George Cougars took the game in the third period with three goals, while the Thunder could only reply once with a goal from Graeme Rubisch.