NORTH RICHLAND HILLS, Texas — After a lackluster start to the 2009-10 campaign, the Texas Brahmas seem to have found their mojo and are riding the wave of a six-game winning streak in which they have outscored their opposition 21-9. In all six wins, the Brahmas defense has allowed two goals or fewer.
Opening the season with a 3-2 overtime win on the road against the Colorado Eagles was a great start, but the Brahmas went 4-6 in their first 10 games and were 8-9-3 through the end of November, mired in fifth place in the Southern Conference.
Then things began to change.
The Brahmas ended November with a 3-1 win over the Tulsa Oilers and then went on to defeat the Corpus Christi Ice Rays, Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs, Allen Americans, Arizona Sundogs and the Tulsa Oilers again to bring them to this weekend’s two game series on the road against the Sundogs.
The Brahmas had a seven game win streak earlier this year (Jan. 23-Feb. 6) as they battled to eventually win the 2009 Ray Miron President’s Cup Championship. Head coach Dan Wildfong isn’t taking the current streak for granted, nor is he willing to allow the team to rest on their laurels.
“We’ve still got work to do – we’ve got a lot of work, but I see us working hard and competing the way I want us to,” Wildfong said. “That’s over half the battle. If you don’t compete and don’t battle, you’re not going to be here long. These guys are working their butts off now and we’re winning battles and we’re starting to win some games because of it. We didn’t do that at the beginning of the season.”
Wildfong, in his third season with the team, has worked hard to find the right pieces to the puzzle of defending the championship cup, bringing in numerous players and re-shuffling lines to get the Brahmas into an effective, disciplined unit, capable of not just making the playoffs, but to make another run for the cup.
“You know, it’s a process and it doesn’t happen overnight,” Wildfong said. “A lot of our players thought at the beginning that we’d come in here and we’d be the same team. We’ve made some moves and we’ve made some changes. You have to work hard first, number one. It just takes time sometimes. It’s not going to happen overnight…these guys are battling hard for whatever we can get.”
The Brahmas’ goaltenders, Brett Jaeger and Joe Palmer, have suffered through some difficult games to start the year, but they maintain a positive attitude and a strong drive toward continuous improvement.
“I think there was a couple of games in there, and a couple of goals obviously in those games I would like to have back,” Palmer said. “You’ve just got to continue working hard and getting better every night and every day.”
“I think they’re starting to come around,” Wildfong said. “They’re starting to make some big saves for us but we need to see it on a regular basis and I think they can say the same thing about themselves. They work hard in practice and they keep working through it and they’ll overcome it.”
Jaeger, the reigning CHL Goalie of the Week, stopped 61 shots and recorded two wins last week, including a 35-save performance in a 3-2 overtime win over Arizona.
“At the beginning, we got off to a tough start,” Jaeger admits. “It’s a team game and obviously when a team isn’t playing well, it makes our jobs tougher. We’ve been finding ways to battle through it.”
Sitting at 13-9-3 with 29 points (fifth in the league), Wildfong, along with assistant coach Ron Vogel, has already faced as many challenges as he’d probably like to at this juncture of the season, but he knows what it takes to win and is confident his Brahmas will continue to fight to defend what they worked so hard to achieve.
Contact the author/photographer at robert.keith@prohockeynews.com
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