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Triton
10-25-2005, 10:25 AM
The Brandon Wheat Kings will be out to snap a pair of losing streaks Tuesday night when they kick off a 5-game U.S. road trip in Kennewick, Washington against the Tri-City Americans.

Losers of back to back home games including last Friday's 4-1 defeat at the hands of the visiting Kootenay Ice, the Wheat Kings enter Tuesday's game looking for their first road win of the season. Brandon is currently 3-9-1-0 and sitting in last place in the WHL's Eastern Division. While the Wheat Kings are a respectable 3-3-1 at home, the defending Eastern Division Champions have gone 0-6 on the road this year.

During their annual western road swing last season - a 7-gamer that included stops throughout B.C. - Brandon was just 1-3-3. As for their last trip through the United States, which came during the 2003-04 campaign, the Wheats were winless, going 0-3-2.

In order to be successful out west, the Wheat Kings will need to improve their special teams' numbers. Entering Tuesday's game against the 3-5-0 Americans, Brandon is sitting 19th in the WHL on both the powerplay (7.2%) and penalty killing (76%).

Sami Sandell enters the trip leading the club in scoring, with seven assists in 7 games while 19-year old Mark Derlago - despite being shutout Friday against the Ice - has three goals and 4 points in his last five games.

Brandon begins tonight's trip with 24 of its 25 players on the trip. The only one left behind this week was veteran center Jeff Topilko, who suffered a broken leg during a 4-3 loss to Calgary on October 15th.

Following tonight's game, the Wheat Kings will travel to Spokane where they'll meet the Chiefs on Wednesday. Brandon will complete the tour this weekend with games in Seattle, Portland and Everett before travelling 2,000 kilomtres home on Monday

Triton
10-26-2005, 10:21 AM
We won.And in the process snapped two streaks..one being our losing streak and the other being our first win on the road.Although we didn't score a PP goal...again,we did however manage to play a solid road game.Wikner is starting to have his coming out party,Plante played solid and Burki chipped in with a couple of goals.Alright,lets make it 2 in a row against the Chiefs tonight.The last time we went out to the States,we were winless so this is a good start for the long haul.Hopefully this trip will gather the boys closer as a team.


GO! WHEATIES GO!