After embarking on their second three-games-in-three-nights on their Heritage Junior Hockey League (HJHL) season, the Cochrane Generals came out with two of a possible three wins in games that took place Oct. 19 through until the 21. In the team's first game, they hit the road and travelled to Medicine Hat to face the Cubs at the Kinplex Arena. Cochrane scored the first two goals of the game off the sticks of Taylor Girard and Chris Sambrook, but Medicine Hat would tie the game midway through the second period before Sambrook would notch his second goal of the game, restoring the Gens one goal lead. The lead would only last for three minutes with the Cubs scoring a power play tally as well as an even strength goal to put Medicine Hat up 4-3 at the 6:06 mark of the frame. Ben Davidson replied for Cochrane before heading into the third where Medicine Hat scored a shorthanded goal midway through the period which stood as the game winner. The following night, the team returned home to their digs at the Cochrane Arena to face off with the lowly Three Hills Thrashers. The game was never close as Cochrane scored first period goals from Braden Bain, Sam Norris, Ben Davidson, Ryan Davis and Jordan Fisher to race out to a 5-0 lead with the second stanza being much of the same. The Generals extended their lead to 13-0 with goals coming from Davis getting his second of the game as well as goals from Harry Osler, Scott Shugg, Caden Chudleigh, who scored twice in the period, Zach Cugnet, Chris Sambrook and Vance Wesley. Davidson would notch his second goal of the game in the third stretching the lead to 14-0 before Three Hills finally got themselves on the board. Osler got his second goal of the contest to round out the scoring with the Gens winning 15-1. Jordan Fisher was the offensive catalyst for his team in this game, registering one goal and six assists for seven points while Osler chipped in with two goals and three assists in a game where all but three Generals tallied at least a point in the game, firing a season high 69 shots on the Thrashers goaltenders. Gens' goalie Knute Loe stopped 12 shots in the victory. To finish off the busy weekend schedule, the Generals hosted the two-time defending league champions the Red Deer Vipers. Cochrane came out strong bursting open a 1-1 tie by getting three goals from Brandon Aab who scored the team's first goal as well as Braden Bain and Jordan Marks. River Ross scored early in the second to make it 5-1 and Aab completed his hat trick just before the second period buzzer after Red Deer made it 5-2. The Vipers scored at the 6:26 mark of the third period to round out the scoring with Cochrane winning 6-3. Head coach Travis McMillan said he was happy his team was able to take away four of a possible six points from the weekend. "It was funny because going into the weekend you kind of see what your match ups are and if you're going to be able to get six points out of three games or if you're only going to be able to squeak out two points," McMillan said. "So after practice on Thursday, taking a look at our schedule, I figured we'd be able to pull off four points but it was really the opposite that we thought we would get a solid win over Medicine Hat, come home and hopefully get two points over Three Hills and then the tough game would be against Red Deer. We didn't play that well against Medicine Hat, we continued to get into some penalty trouble but through the next two days, the guys really started to realize it was going to be a big weekend so we needed four points out of the last two games." Cochrane will now host the newly-named expansion team in the Lomond Lakers on Oct. 27, and McMillan isn't really sure what to expect from the new club. "When an expansion team comes into any league, you expect a little bit of a shake up in terms of how their game is played. I'm not sure what their style is and they probably have a few of Coaldale's releases prior to the season as well as some players from Calgary and surrounding areas that are familiar to myself," McMIllan said. "It's really tough to say because you can see them in the standings and follow them closely on any social media platform, but until you actually physically get on the ice with them and see what they've got, it's very up in the air ... they could pound the hell out of us or we could push the pace and dictate the play. I'm not expecting a lot of surprises but the boys know they need to prepare in order to win any game this season." Puck drop for the game will go at 7 p.m. at the Cochrane Arena.
