Sapurji: Petes injuries painful for McRae

Talking to Peterborough Petes head coach Ken McRae about losing three key players in the span of 24 hours he was a little dumbfounded to say the least.

But considering the Petes have been dealing with injuries all season (Brett Theberge, Zach Tatrn, Barron Smith, et al.) this is just par for the course.

However, losing top scorer Ryan Spooner, star forward Austin Watson and veteran forward Jack Walchessen in a single day? That's crazy.

It was a joke, but I asked McRae if he had perhaps considered calling in a witch doctor to help rid the team of whatever bad juju was contributing to this bad luck.

“It’s too late for the witch doctor,” said McRae.

At very least they should call ex-Petes coach Brian Drumm back to perform one of his trademark seances.

NOTE: True story. When Brian Drumm was an assistant coach with the Petes in 1996, he performed a seance in the Petes dressing room prior to the team winning the OHL championship complete with candles and full-blown weirdness. Fo reals.

Anyway, here's today's story by yours truly in the Star on the Petes tale of pain and sorrow.

“I felt sorry for the guys, both Watson and Spooner are in their draft years,” said McRae. “And Jack he just wants to be on the ice every day.”

Spooner, who led the Petes in scoring, says he's trying to stay positive about the draft while mending his broken collarbone.

“I was pretty disappointed at the time, it was an unfortunate bounce for me,” said Spooner. “But I have to look at the positives – I mean it’s not the worst thing that could have happened. It could have happened at the beginning of the year, so I guess I’m lucky to have played (47) games this season and showed people what I could do.”

Petes resident surfer-dude Walchessen, was also having a career year when he was felled by his separated shoulder, though he considers himself the "lucky one" out of the three because he'll only miss four weeks.

“I can’t wait to get back, it’s so frustrating especially when you know your team is not doing well,” said Walchessen, who spent his summer surfing the Mentawai Islands off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.

“I was starting to play consistently and was helping the team out with secondary scoring and playing my defensive role... I felt like I was just getting on a roll and was going to build from there.”

The short-handed Petes will play host to the Belleville Bulls tonight.

As always - questions, comments, compliments, complaints, threats etc: sunaya19@hotmail.com or on Twitter @loosepucks