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 set-up goals by defencemen Arwin Atwal and Matt Ho, while Chris Tai was solid in net making 39 saves as his team was outshot 41-21.
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. The victims including perennial powerhorse and defending B.C. champion Vancouver Northwest Giants.
