The Cochrane Generals may not want the Christmas break of their Heritage Junior Hockey League (HJHL) to come so soon. After shutting out the Okotoks Bisons 5-0 on Dec. 9, the Generals followed that up with three straight victories on Dec. 11, Dec. 14 and Dec. 16 over the Strathmore Wheatland Kings, Three Hills Thrashers and High River Flyers to wrap up the pre-Christmas portion of their season, finishing with a 16-7-2 record, four points back of Okotoks and 12 points back of the Coaldale Copperheads. Cochrane played a rare weekday game when they were in Strathmore to tangle with the Wheatland Kings. Cochrane scored three goals in the opening two periods off the sticks of Braden Bain, Chris Sambrook and Scott Shugg to run the Generals lead to 3-0 heading into the third. Sam Norris made it 4-0 and Keenan McElroy bumped the score up to 5-1 once Strathmore broke Erik Garber's shut out streak. Caden Chudleigh rounded out the scoring for the Gens, with the game ending 6-3 in favour of the visitors. "Obviously, it was a pretty productive week. On Tuesdays we normally have practice, which didn't happen because we did have a game in Strathmore and fortunately we pulled out the win," Generals head coach Travis McMillan said. "I thought we dictated the pace and had a pretty good forecheck. They have some wide ice in Strathmore so that kind of spread out the forecheck a bit but we were able to maintain and control the majority of the pace. We had a few defensive breakdowns that we took a look at through our video analysis and got on top of it pretty quickly and came out with that win." Cochrane then travelled to Three Hills to play the lowly Thrashers. Cochrane pumped in 10 straight goals on a total of 57 shots before Three Hills was finally able to get on the board late in the third period. Zach Cugnet, River Ross, Chris Sambrook, Sam Norris, Jaeden Dowling and Takuro Okada all posted goals in the victory while both Harry Osler and Scott Shugg had multi-goal games. Robert Michetti made 28 saves in the victory. To round out the schedule before the holidays, Cochrane hosted High River at the Cochrane Arena. River Ross, Ben Davidson and Caylin Wildman scored early in the first period to give the Generals a 3-0 lead before High River scored twice later in the period to bring the Flyers within one heading into the final two periods. Harry Osler buried a goal to double up on the Generals lead, which was quickly answered by a High River goal just minutes later, but that was as close as they'd come with Chris Sambrook and Scott Shugg salting the game away with a 6-3 decision in favour of Cochrane. "Going into Three Hills and coming back home to play High River were two points we obviously needed from each game respectively. The boys played great on Friday night (against Three Hills) ... the boys sometimes play down to the level of teams that were a little lower in terms of skill level against us but we did a very good job of making sure we did what we were suppose to do and get a victory," McMillan said. "As for Sunday's game, High River is a pretty good team when they want to be and getting that win in our own barn is very important. I think we generally play pretty well in our own rink so for what it's worth, I thought we were able to control most of that game as well. It was a little back and forth but when the third period rolled around we put our foot on the gas pedal and came away with three wins which I'm very happy about." The Generals will get a much needed break for the holidays to rest and recoup from some injuries before returning to action on Jan. 4 and 5 against Strathmore and Coaldale.
