It wasn't a good weekend for the Humboldt Broncos.
The Junior A hockey team lost both of their games, one at home on Friday and another away on Saturday, to make it three losses in a row.
The Broncos faced the Battlefords North Stars at the Elgar Petersen Arena on November 23.
It was a standoff between the two teams for the bulk of the game, with neither team able to score in the first and second periods, despite power plays on both sides.
Finally, the Stars scored at 7:26 of the third to take a 1-0 lead. That was enough to win them the game.
Neither team was able to score on the power play in this matchup. Both went zero for four.
The main reason the Broncos failed to win this game - or score a single goal - could be put down to a lack of shots on goal. Humboldt made just 12 shots on goal over the entire three periods, according to the SJHL game sheet - that's fewer than they usually make in a single period.
The Stars, meanwhile, made 31 shots on goal over three periods, with 13 of those in the last frame alone.
Those shots kept Bronco goalie Matt Hrynkiw busy, and he was named one of the three stars of the night for only letting one of those 31 shots get past him.
The next night, the Broncos played the Notre Dame Hounds at the Davidson Arena.
They corrected their mistake from the previous night, making a whopping 45 shots on goal over four periods against the Hounds, who made only 34, but they still lost by one point.
The first Broncos' goal in two nights was scored by Logan Sproule at 11:11 of the first period, assisted by David Miazga and Ryan Aubertin.
The Hounds answered that goal with one of their own at 13:32, but the Broncos pulled ahead again with a power-play point by Miazga, assisted by Kam Ballas and Rhett Blackmur at 16:51.
The Hounds tied the game at two with a power play goal of their own at 17:50, but again, the Broncos took the lead with a point by Dylan Fluter, assisted by Adam Zbitniff, scored on a power play at 18:43.
The score stayed at 3-2 throughout the second period and just into the third. The Broncos made it a 4-2 game with a goal at 1:22 of the third period, scored by Adam Antkowiak and assisted by Fluter and Zbitniff.
However, the Hounds got their second wind and scored two goals - one at 2:53 and another at 3:25 - to tie the game at four.
Humboldt got the first major penalty in a few games in the third period. Zbitniff got a five-minute major for boarding, as well as a game misconduct at 15:14.
Despite this power-play opportunity for the Hounds, and another for the Broncos in the third period, the game was still tied at the end of regulation time, and both teams headed into a five-minute overtime period.
The battle in the fourth period was fierce, and it looked like the game was going to go to a shootout, despite a Bronco power play just over a minute in, when the Hounds managed to score on Bronco goaltender Michael Gudmundson with just 28 seconds left on the clock.
The sudden-death goal gave the Hounds a 5-4 win.
Gudmundson faced 34 shots on goal from the Hounds, and turned away 29 of them.
The Broncos went two for six on the power play, while the Hounds were one for five.
The Broncos will play two home games this week - on Nov. 28 against the Flin Flon Bombers, and on Dec. 2 against the Yorkton Terriers.
