Four games into the 2009/10 season and the Jasper Wolves are the only team yet to scratch together a win in the Northern Central Hockey League, but they still remain optimistic. 

Wolves president Rob Olson said the slow start to the season was due mainly to being short on experienced players, with many missing games due to other commitments. However, as players become available he expects the season to get better.

Despite a promising early goal in Friday night’s game against the Hinton Heat, the Jasper Wolves had another disappointing weekend loosing 5-3 on Friday at home and 11-2 on Saturday in Hinton.

Royd Irwin managed to snap an early goal for Jasper at the 12 minute mark of Friday’s game, but Hinton soon followed up with two consecutive goals in the last four minutes of the third.

According to Olson, Friday night’s loss was particularly hard for the team because it was a game they thought they could’ve won.

But with the Wolves short on defencemen, Olson said it was tough to put together a winning team. 

“Two more players and I’m pretty sure that game should’ve been ours.”

“We had two defencemen playing on Friday night, so they played the first ten minutes... and maybe 14 minutes of the second period. They got so tired when the powerplays were over,” he said.

Although successive penalties in the second period meant Jasper had nearly six minutes worth of two-man advantage power plays, the Wolves couldn’t buy a goal. 

Meanwhile, Hinton exploited Jasper’s tired players and managed to get another two goals between penalties giving them a 4-1 lead going into the third period.

To help out the tired players, the team sent a forward back to defence to help them out. “They were just drained,” Olson said.

The Jasper squad managed to capitalize on one power play in the third period, but it wasn’t enough to beat the Heat, who managed one more goal to seal the deal with seven minutes left in the game. 

Looking forward, Olson said it’s just a matter of getting some of the top listed players to games. 

“We’ve got 35 people down on paper, problem is we’re only getting 17 of those to games,” he said. “If we can get those top 15 (from the 35) players out there than we’re a very dangerous team, but we’re only getting five out of our top 15 players.”

This week the team travels to Legal, who currently sit in fifth place with one win for the season, to play this Saturday (Nov. 7).

Optimistic about getting a win together this weekend, Olson said travelling might be just what the team needs. 

“Sometimes it’s good for the team to do some travelling... so the new guys that don’t know each other get to spend some time together.”

However, getting players to leave town can sometimes be half the battle. “We’ll have to see how many we can get out to Legal... everybody wants to play at home, but to leave town is usually a bit of a challenge.”