The Nelson Junior Leafs will have to battle hard this weekend against Castlegar if they hope to stack up points before the playoffs.
Sitting firmly in third in the Neil Murdoch Division of the KIJHL, 13 points above Spokane and 15 points below Castlegar, the Leafs will have to pull out all stops to make any change in their overall regular season fate.
“There’s good opportunity to still come in second and have home ice advantage and that’s one thing we’re pushing for,” said Frank Maida, Leafs’ head coach.
“We’ll be playing one game at a time, we’re not looking farther than [tonight’s] game right now, but it’s still an opportunity.”
The Leafs battle the Rebels tonight at the Nelson and District Community Complex in the first game of a home and home. Game time is 7 p.m.
“It’ll be a big game, we’re hoping we come out and have some emotion in our game and play our game and everything should work out for us,” said Maida.
The Leafs are coming off of two wins against Golden and Columbia Valley last weekend and are hoping to ride that momentum through.
“I think we had a good weekend, we played fairly well for both games and I thought we controlled both games for the most part,” said Maida.
“When we play our game and play it for 60 minutes, we usually come out ahead.”