Here we go.
After a busy weekend of Ontario Hockey League action on the road with wins at Kingston Friday night, at Belleville on Saturday night and at Ottawa yesterday, the Owen Sound Attack come home, by and large.
Sure, there’s a couple of back to back junkets on the road ahead; one in February another in March, but mostly the flow of games down the final third of the season is decently balanced, with an appealing 5 game home stand in early March.
But here’s the issue for the Attack in the final third of the season…..
Over their final 23 games, there are very few light touches.
By my count they have 7 games remaining against Eastern Conference clubs, but 4 of those 7 matches are against Barrie, starting with Wednesday’s game here against the Colts.
Because the Attack and the Colts are geographically linked and play each other 6 times a season, the Barrie outfit may as well be a Western Conference squad as far as the Attack are concerned.
Along with the four head to head with Barrie, Owen Sound has 16 straight up Western Conference matches.
A quarter of those 16 games are with Guelph, in fact the four game set is split with two back to back, home & home series which commence Friday night at the Sleeman Centre.
The Attack & Guelph were in close proximity this weekend, both essentially based out of the same motel complex in Kingston, and the emotions exhibited could not be categorized as ” warm “.
Add in 3 with London, 2 with Kitchener, a game at Plymouth and the season ending home & home with Sarnia and you can see that as successful as the first two-thirds of the season has been, the real challenge for the Attack begins on Wednesday.
I’m Fred Wallace