What's with the road record?
That's what some Bonnyville Jr. A Pontiacs fans might be asking this season, after taking a peak at the team's split stats at home versus playing on the road.
Playing in front of the home crowd, inside the friendly confines of the R. J. Lalonde Arena, the Pontiacs are a stellar 21-5-1, among the league's best when it comes to winning at home.
On the road, however, the Pontiacs are only a few games over the .500 mark, clinging to a 13-9-5 record away from Bonnyville.
They are puzzling statistics. A team so strong at home and so unpredictable on the road, how to explain this conundrum?
Ask the players and coaches and it's a simple explanation. “It's all in our heads.”
In a fleeting attempt to grasp what that simple statement might mean, I joined the Pontiacs on a recent two-game road trip to Grande Prairie.
Almost as though the team was providing me with a first-hand sample of their inability to string a set of wins together on the road, the Pontiacs proceeded to lose both games in GP.
Sure, the sample size was small, but if psych 101 taught me anything, it's that if you want to understand why something happened the way it did, ask the people involved immediately after it happened – errr, wait. Maybe that was journalism class…it's all a blur.
Regardless of where I learned it, I was about to put my question-asking abilities into practice, like a good journalist would do.
I asked the coaches why. I asked the players why. “Why is do you lose on the road and not at home?”
Similar responses kept popping up. “It's 99 per cent mental,” some said. “We aren't mentally prepared to play,” others explained.
The physical ability is there, but making the mind execute those abilities on the road seems to be a difficult thing for the team to do.
To be fair, it's understandable that there would be a discrepancy between a team's home and road records.
Travelling from Bonnyville to Grande Prairie, for example, is a six to eight hour trip, depending on road and bus conditions.
You would have a hard time convincing me that a player is apt to playing up to his or her abilities after travelling all day on a bus.
Even sleeping in a hotel room, as opposed to your own bed, can throw a wrench into the process.
You never know what can happen at a hotel. There are checkout times to meet, wake-up call malfunctions, just about anything can occur that may take a player out of their element and off their game.
The point is, the Pontiacs are probably all right when they say the road record is a product of their minds.
But to be successful in the playoffs, players will have to overcome that setback.
“Our coaches have really tried to get the message through that we have the ability to win on the road. And we know we do,” said Pontiacs assistant captain Jordon Krankowsky. “But we need to really understand what they are saying and respond to it in the right way.
“We need to come mentally prepared to play.”
