The Greater Vancouver Canadians will be looking to snap a six game winless streak when they travel to Chase this weekend to resume their B.C. Major Midget Hockey League regular season schedule with a two game series against the Thompson Blazers.
The Canadians entered the holiday break having dropped three of four games, including a sweep in Nanaimo against the North Island Silvertips, to slip into a tie for fourth spot in the standings with a 12-8-4 record.
Any hope of restoring momentum was quickly dashed at the prestigious 34th annual Macs Midget Tournament in Calgary.
Greater Vancouver opened the event on Boxing Day by getting blasted 11-1 by the Calgary Flames, one of the top teams in the Alberta Major Midget League. It didn't get much better 24 hours later as the locals fell 8-1 to Severstal/Locomotiv. The only consolation was the Russian team did go on to win the championship.
The Canadians closed out the tournament with a 4-2 loss to the Saskatoon Blazers, before salvaging a 2-2 tie with the Red Deer Rebels in their final game. Tyler Sandu setup goals by defencemen Arwin Atwal and Matt Ho, while Chris Tai was solid in net making 39 saves.
Greater Vancouver was not the only team to struggle in Calgary. None of the five participating BCMMHL teams qualified for the playoffs and had a combined record of 2-15-3.
Icing...
Five Canadians have been selected to play in the BCMMHL All-Star Game slated for Jan. 13 in Coquitlam at Planet Ice. The rosters will include goaltender Chris Tai, defenceman Arvin Atwal and forwards Malcolm Glaholt, Tyler Sandhu and Troy Sutherland.
