Despite heavily outshooting their opponents, the Dauphin Clippers hockey team dropped a 3-2 decision to the Virden Golden Bears in their home opener, Saturday.
Brandon Wood and Hayden Shtykalo had staked Dauphin to leads of 1-0 and 2-1, but the Golden Bears answered right back on a pair of goals from Shane Ritchie.
Slade Price netted what proved to be the winner, 5:35 into the third period.
Brodie Cameron made 52 saves to earn the win in goal for Virden, while Ben Miner was tagged with the loss with 18 saves.
Clippers coach Drew Kulcheski felt the Clippers deserved a better fate.
“I thought we played a real good 60 minutes. I couldn’t have asked them to have a better 60. We played our game and sometimes it just doesn’t go our way. But if we play like that for the rest of the season, I think we’ll be very successful,” he said.
Kulcheski isn’t concerned about the offence not burying their chances.
“It will come. This is only our second game together. We’ve got a lot of new faces. It will click. The hockey gods weren’t with us today, but sometimes they will be and sometimes they won’t be and that’s just the way it goes. I’m not concerned at all,” he said, adding he is pleased with the team’s defensive play.
“We stuck to our game plan. We trapped them when we needed to trap them. We kept them to the outside. They’ve got a couple of big scorers on there that I was concerned about going in and we held them off the scoresheet as well as we can. I’m very proud of how we played defensively,” Kulcheski said.
The Clippers are on the road tonight, as they face the Birtle Falcons at 8 p.m. in Birtle.
Dauphin returns home on the weekend to host the Neepawa Tigers, Friday at 7:30 p.m., and they face the Glenboro/Carberry/Baldur Wildcats, Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
Kulcheski hopes the Clippers can continue its winning habits, something he has been quoting all season.
“If we keep playing the way we were playing today, we’re going to have success. We’re going to build on the little things that we did today, take it into Tuesday and, hopefully, come away with two points,” he said.
