Three weeks in to the 2013-14 season, the Olds Grizzlys have found themselves in the Alberta Junior Hockey League's South Division basement after dropping five straight games.
In the wake of a pair of losses on the weekend of September 13 and 14, the Grizzlys went up against the division leading Brooks Bandits on Sept. 17 at the Olds Sports Complex.
Only nine seconds into the game the team was facing a 1-0 deficit when Brooks' Garrett Forster knocked the puck off his skate into the Olds net.
Just under three minutes later, Alex Roberts took advantage of a rebound to put the Bandits up 2-0.
Olds netminder Ethan Jemieff was pulled from between the posts for a pep talk at 7:19 and Jake Tamagi filled in for him for the roughly two minutes he was gone.
The bench-side chat seemed to have worked as Jemieff and the Olds defence were able to keep the Bandits at bay for the rest of the period and the Grizzlys finally put a goal on the board at 1:16 when BJ Duffin fired home a puck that was loose in the Brooks crease.
It looked like the Grizzlys had shed the sloppy and unfocused play of the first frame in the middle period when they tied the game at 2-2 thanks to a power-play goal from Chris Gerrie at 11:45.
But 28 seconds later Roberts renewed the Bandits' lead with a bullet.
Before the period ended Brooks tallied two more goals.
A goaltender interference penalty against Duffin cost the Grizzlys at 11:46 when Brooks' Maddison Smiley scored on the power play and the Bandits beat Jemieff one more time at 10:54 at the hands of Brandon Tkachuk.
The Grizzlys mustered one more power-play goal at 6:54 thanks to Kyle Star but the game ended with a 7-3 victory for Brooks.
Olds was in better form on Sept. 20 when the squad squared off for its second home game of the week against the Whitecourt Wolverines.
Both teams earned a pair of goals in each of the first two periods and were deadlocked 4-4 going into the third frame.
Tamagi managed to keep the Grizzlys in the game for the first half of the period when his team had trouble keeping the puck out of their zone, mostly due to turnovers.
He was caught off balance at 10:15, however, when Clay Spencer was able to give the Wolverines the go-ahead goal.
Star tied the game again and earned a hat trick at 7:48 after capitalizing on a Whitecourt tripping penalty.
But a turnover in front of the Olds net at 5:13 allowed Whitecourt's Trace Elson to score the Wolverines' winning goal, leading to a 6-5 final.
The following night, the Grizzlys travelled to Brooks for a rematch where the Bandits were able to claim victory with only one goal scored in the first period.
With a record of 2 and 5, Olds is heading out on a five-game road trip starting with a bout against the Canmore Eagles on Sept. 24.
The squad's next home game is Oct. 8 when they host the Calgary Mustangs.
