Phantoms pick up first win of season

Parrsboro - The Fundy Phantoms won their first game of the season Sunday afternoon, beating the Chester Clippers by a score of 5-1 in Parrsboro.
"It was definitely overdue," assistant Phantom coach Steve Leblanc said. "We got the monkey off our back so that was good."
The game was the second half of a home and home stand and they came close to winning Saturday's first game as well.
"We had a 4-0 lead and ended up losing 5-4," Leblanc said. "That was quite a disappointment but we were running a short bench and the boys just ran out of steam."
The Phantoms have had a hard time scoring this season but lit up the lamp against the Clippers.
"Partly it was because of the level of competition," Leblanc added. "We're in a league where there's not much parity. We're dealing with teams that have ex junior A and junior B players up and down their rosters."
A good example of that is their next opponent. On Friday night they will host the Musquodoboit Crunch.
"We usually play the Crunch pretty good," Leblanc said. "That's a team that has eight 20-year-olds and five guys with junior A experience.
"But we have some hot goaltending now and the boy's are confident so you never know what will happen."
Sunday's game was the 16th of a 30 game schedule.
"In the first half we played the first and second place teams three or four game each, so that was a rough schedule coming out of the gate," Leblanc said. "We hope the second half of the schedule will be a little softer for us.
"The worst part about it is we could easily have about five wins right now because we had several very close games but we just couldn't put them away."
Despite winning only one game so far Leblanc said they team is really beginning to gel.
"We're starting to get a nice team atmosphere now. We are having a lot of fun and that's the key," Leblanc said. "And I think we're putting an entertaining product on the ice."