The Circus

Instead of being pessimistic about Wednesday night's loss against Sherbrooke (that I totally called because teams with no wins tend to reverse that fate against teams I choose to blog about), I have decided to move on.

To the circus.

Yes! The circus: Not the actual circus, just a perpetual one with green-and-red tents even though it's not as close to Christmas as some store-fronts would have you believe (dear God. It's not even Halloween yet. Calm down already). The one with a moose on it as imposing as the stuffed animals in several Canadian souvenir boutiques, except this time they're actually a team to be reckoned with so maybe we should be a little scared. Draw some frown lines on that moose. They're ready!

(How apparent is it that I have not had coffee all day?)

Anyway. Starring ring-leader MacKinnon!

(Stop, hammer time?)
The keeper of the cage, Zachary Fucale:

Normally the lion would be in there but he's injured:

Careful bro, he'll totally rip your head off.

Quit judging my use of Photoshop (my sincere apologies to Jonathan Drouin). I only have an hour, here.

TVA Sports tried to be nice to us by headlining Ringleader and Archambault in their tweet, but when you click on the link, you quickly realize that tonight is not even remotely about Les Voltigeurs de Drummondville, it really is about the circus that has come to town. They will spin circles and amaze their audience and feed the media a ton of lines with their feats of glory!...But maybe, hopefully, somebody will ruin the circus.

Somebody wearing red and black.

For my first game back at the Centre Marcel Dionne in over two years, somebody wearing red and black better ruin the circus.

Okay, but seriously: Maybe I better feed you some numbers instead of my ridiculous analogies.

Halifax: 7-1-0-0, 14 points, second in the league (not sure why, they're dead-on with Quebec), 42 GF, 20 GA, 5-game winning streak, MacKinnon and Drouin each have 15 points in 8 and 7 games respectively, Fucale has a 2.25 GAA with a .901 SV%.

Drummondville: 4-4-0-0, 8 points, 10th in the league, 20 GF, 24 GA, just handed Sherbrooke their first win in franchise history, Archambault has 7 points in 8 games, Graham stands at 3.07 GAA and .867 SV%.

Head-to-head: Drummondville lost all three games against the Moose last season, the worst of which was their last: 6-2 on January 12th in Halifax. The others were by one goal, 4-3 and 2-1 respectively.

Alum-news?: I wish. Nothing of note that I can remember happened since the last post. If I'm wrong, let me know in the comments!

W is a favourite letter in the alphabet.

So the Voltigeurs have kicked off opening weekend with two wins, first on Friday with a 4-3 victory against the Memorial Cup-winning Cataractes and then on Sunday as they beat the newest team in the league, the Sherbrooke Phoenix, 2-1.

Things that are cool in light of these wins:

• Forever annoying #theshawi when they actually have things to celebrate by beating them.
• Olivier Archambault keeps passing to people and some of these plays turn into goals. Including one of his own.
• Newcomer Lukas Balmelli's first goal in the league proved to be the game-winner against Sherbrooke.
• Dexter Weber got his first point in the league against #theshawi.
• Domenic Graham got a night off AND Louis-Philip Guindon fared rather impressively in his place in what was his first taste of real QMJHL action yesterday afternoon. Fellow rookie Daniel Audette was unable to score his first goal because of him.

Things we like a little less:

• One-goal games. But unlike last year, so far the Volts seem to be on the right side of them.
• Nikolas Brouillard losing teeth and being unable to finish said Sherbrooke game.
• The power play is 0-for-12. Guy Boucher is somewhere launching baseballs at people's heads with a hockey stick because of this.

Up next: Rouyn Noranda (home opener!). These guys have split their weekend with a 5-3 loss against the Armada and a 2-1 win against Victoriaville. Jean Sébastien Dea and Sven Andrighetto have combined for nine points in those two games.