It was a tough weekend for the Yorkton Kinsmen Terriers of the SSMHL Midget Division as they lost three straight games in three straight days, dropping a 6-2 decision to the Prairie Storm on Friday before falling 2-1 to the first place Regina Capitals on Saturday and 3-1 to the second place Regina Rangers on Sunday.
The three losses allowed both the Capitals and Rangers to leapfrog the Terriers into first and second place, while Yorkton now holds down third overall in the 14-team SSMHL Midget Division with a 9-7-2 record and 20 points, one point ahead of the Notre Dame Hounds (8-3-3) and three points up on both the Prairie Storm (8-5-1) and Swift Current K-Motel Hurricanes (8-7-1).
The Capitals lead the league with an 11-1-2 record and 24 points while the Rangers are second with a 9-5-5 record and 23 points.
Friday night curse
Friday nights haven't been friendly to the Yorkton Kinsmen Terriers in the 2014/15 season as the team carried a 0-3 Friday night record into the opening game of their three game home stand with the hopes of finally doing away with the curse.
Unfortunately for the Kinsmen Terriers however, the curse proved to be far more deadly than they thought as the visiting Prairie Storm skated to a convincing 6-2 win over Yorkton.
Jared Steier opened the scoring for the visitors with 13:28 remaining in the first period, however Kinsmen Terrier captain Kholton Shewchuk responded not long after to send the game into the first intermission deadlocked at one.
But the second period, a period in which the Kinsmen Terriers have played strongly so far this season, proved to be their downfall this game as the Prairie Storm scored three straight goals, one each by Dayton Buchanan, Thalon Kress and Nathan Kuntz before Kinsmen Terrier leading scorer Tayon Metzler finally stopped the bleeding to make it 4-2 Prairie Storm after 40 minutes.
 Two more third period markers, one each by Bryce Hubick and Jason Bruce, gave the visiting Prairie Storm a 6-2 win, causing Kinsmen Terrier head coach Noel Budz to say that the team simply was prepared for the game. "We didn't come out as focused as we needed to," offerd Budz. "Friday nights we are 0-4 but there are no excuses on that either right. You've got to come and play every night."
Losses to Regina
Less than 24 hours after being obliterated by the Prairie Storm, the Yorkton Kinsmen Terriers were back in action, this time hosting the visiting Regina Capitals at the Farrell Agencies Arena.
The first place Capitals found the scoreboard first when Brock Strueby scored the lone goal of the first period.
A second period marker by Caleb Sutter drew the Kinsmen Terriers even on the only goal of the second frame, however a bad change late in the third period enabled the Capitals' Fraiser Belanger to skate in uncontested and beat Kinsmen Terrier netminder Alex Geddes for the eventual game winning goal in Saturday's 2-1 Kinsmen Terrier loss.
They say that bad things come in threes and the proof of that statement was felt by the Kinsmen Terriers this past weekend, as they dropped their final game of the three game home stand by a score of 3-1 to the visiting Regina Rangers at the Kinsmen Arena.
League leading scorer Colby Brandt put the visitors on the board midway through the first period, however Yorkton's Jarvis Gelowitz made sure the Rangers didn't take a lead into the first intermission, beating Regina netminder Travis Beaudry late in the frame to make it 1-1.
Unfortunately for Yorkton, the Gelowitz goal was the only one that they could muster in the game while the Rangers put two more past Kinsmen Terrier netminder Carter Park to give Yorkton their third loss in as many days.
But despite losing three straight games, Kinsmen Terrier head coach Noel Budz said that he is still happy with the way the team is playing; all they need to do now is find some puck luck. "You play the second and third best teams, first and second now as they're ahead of us, teams in the league and you lose 2-1 and a bad change cost us in that game and tonight just a hot goalie," offered Budz on the two games against the Regina clubs, continuing, "We had 51 shots on net and we could only get a single bullet behind him. Eventually we'll start to get the bounces again."
Next Action
The Yorkton Kinsmen Terriers (9-7-2) will be in action tomorrow (Thursday) as they look to avenge Saturday's 2-1 loss to the Regina Capitals (11-1-2) when they visit the Caps at Regina's Al Ritchie Arena.
The Kinsmen Terriers will then travel to Wilcox on Saturday to take on the Notre Dame Argos (6-6-2) to wrap up their November schedule.
