By Paul Osborne, The Guelph Tribune - It was reality check time for the Guelph Storm this weekend.

It’s not that they didn’t try, it’s just that they didn’t try hard enough. The truth of the matter is that with such a young and inexperienced roster this year, the margin for error is almost zero every night. Hard work will win them some games, but if the other team works just as hard, chances are the opposition’s edge in experience, talent and, in some cases, size will carry the day.

That is what happened Friday as the Storm were shutout 4-0 by a much larger and more experienced team in Peterborough, and then again on Saturday in London, where they dropped a 5-1 decision.

“I think this is the nightmare we thought might happen before the year started – where are we going to get our goals from?” reflected head coach Scott Walker. “So I was thrilled to see (Matt Finn) score that nice goal against London. We have young guys worrying about not scoring and starting to squeeze their sticks and they just have to relax. The goals will come.”

The other reality for the forwards on the Storm is that you have a group of young players who are either new to the league or, at best, have only played on the third and fourth lines.  Now players like Scott Kosmachuk, Zack Mitchell and even Cody McNaughton are being asked to play against the other team’s top two lines, night in and night out, and that makes every aspect of the game more difficult.

“Getting Brock McGinn back for next weekend will also really help,” said Walker referring to McGinn’s six game suspension that ended after the London contest. “I think we did pretty good without him, because he creates a lot of energy and room out there for his line-mates.”

Walker acknowledged that it wasn’t just a lack of scoring that hurt his club this past weekend. “I’ve been a little bit disappointed with our defence,” he said. “I thought that would be our strength heading into the season, but our older guys have to be better.  (Stephen) Gaskin and (Kyle) Pereira should be two guys I can put out there for thirty minutes every night and not have to worry about them, but that hasn’t been the case so far.”

The other disappointment on defence has been Andrey Pedan. If you were generous, you could describe his play as lackadaisical and, at worst, selfish. He may be suffering from an NHL training camp hangover, (which isn’t unusual for young players who return to junior thinking the game will be “easy”) because it’s as if every rush has to be end-to-end, or as if he has to drive every opponent right through the boards. It’s a case of too many stick checks and, at times, simply not enough effort from the 18-year-old New York Islander draft-pick. He has the skill, he just needs to get his head screwed on straight again.

“But its not all doom and gloom,” said Walker. “I thought Jason Dickinson, (Justin) Auger and (Spencer) Turcotte all had their best games of the season on Saturday, and Finn was unbelievable again. One thing is for sure, we have a great locker room and the guys will all show up for work Monday with their work clothes on.  They just have to realize that if we don’t play at 100 miles per hour every shift of every game, we’ll have a hard time winning this year.”
Fans will live with losses if the team tops out the speedometer but this past weekend that didn’t happen. As part of their steep learning curve this young club has to learn that ‘good enough’ isn’t acceptable – going above and beyond is the only path to success.  And it is the veterans that must lead the way.

From the Land of Oz . . . Despite losing 4-0 to Peterborough, Guelph goaltender Garret Sparks was named the games third star and was the team’s best player. Brandon Foote made 43 saves in the Storm’s loss in London …Walker has been named as an assistant coach for Canada’s World Junior team.