Forget the Ides of March, the jinx of January can’t end soon enough for the Grandview Steelers.
At one time challenging for first place in the Tom Shaw Conference, now the junior B hockey league team is fending off challengers of their own as their hold on second place looks shaky after two more losses.
Grandview’s losing skid reached four games after Sunday’s disappoing 5-1 defeat at the hands of first-place North Van at the Burnaby Winter Club.
North Van scored the game’s first four goals before Timothy Chow buried one for the Steelers midway through the third period.
Despite getting 30 shots on net, the squad only generated one goal.
“It’s been a bit of a struggle of late,” said Grandview coach Aldo Bruno. “January has been an ugly month for us and I can’t wait for it to be over.”
Falling well short of blaming Julius Caesar for creating it, Bruno did summise that things have fallen apart recently through a variety of issues, including specialty teams.
“Our biggest thing was defence, and up to two weeks ago we had the best defensive numbers in the league,” he noted. “Our penalty kill was very strong.”
Sunday, North Van scored four powerplay goals, including three by Scott Munro.
A day earlier, while no powerplay tallies were counted, Mission, who leads the Harold Brittain Conference, sailed to a 4-1 decision.
In January the Steelers are 3-6, with two of those wins coming in the first weekend of the new year.
“Every team goes through it, but we kind of put ourselves in a hole and the only answer is to work our way out of it.”
Bruno said the three new faces picked up earlier in the month have worked hard to fit into the Steelers’ system, but the results are lacking.
“The effort is there but we’re not getting the bounces. But we’re not working for those bounces, either.”
The team has two more chances to end January on a good note, as Grandview visits Port Moody on Saturday, while Aldergrove pays a visit to the BWC on Sunday, with a 4 p.m. faceoff.
