The Osoyoos Coyotes hosted the Grand Forks Border Bruins for their home opener at Sun Bowl Arena on Sept. 21 and suffered a 5-3 loss. The Coyotes travel to Summerland this weekend. (Dale Boyd / Osoyoos Times)

By Dale Boyd

Osoyoos Times

After starting the season 0-4, head coach of the Osoyoos Coyotes Dean Maynard is making sure his team keeps their eyes on the long game.

“I keep telling the boys, we’re a super-talented team, we’ve just got to put it together. I’d rather be in this situation in September and knowing what we can work on than having results like this in January,” Maynard said.

The ‘yotes took a tough loss to the 2-0 Revelstoke Grizzlies, with Ryan MacDonald putting in the lone Osoyoos goal in the 1-11 loss on Sept. 21 in Revelstoke.

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It was a tough match-up for the Coyotes.

“Not going to take anything away from Revelstoke, but they’re a pretty good team. Tons of talent and they work hard. For us, we could have pushed our guys a little harder. I feel they could have made themselves work harder, skate harder and shoot more,” Maynard said.

Morale is good in the locker room, Maynard said, as they look to refocus with a Wednesday match up at home against the Summerland Steam.

“Our goal is not just to win every game, which I want that to be our goal, but to be realistic. What we want to do is work on things to better ourselves right to the end, and be a better hockey player at the end when all the things count, when you make playoffs,” Maynard said.

The Osoyoos Coyotes hosted the Grand Forks Border Bruins for their home opener at Sun Bowl Arena on Sept. 21 and suffered a 5-3 loss. The Coyotes travel to Summerland this weekend. (Dale Boyd / Osoyoos Times)

The Coyotes opened their home-ice action this season on Sept. 20, falling 5-3 to the visiting Grand Forks Border Bruins.

Brendan Moseley opened the scoring for the Coyotes in the first, followed by three unanswered goals from the Bruins. Blake Astorino got the Coyotes within one goal mid-second period, and Moseley put another one in the net on a third-period power play, but it wasn’t enough to catch up to the Bruins.

“We definitely came out flying, just we couldn’t put the puck in the net. That’s one of the things we will be working on this week is driving the net, making things happen in front of the net and putting more shots on net,” Maynard said. “And our defensive zone coverage. We need to be more aware of our surroundings.”

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Getting more shots on net is a focus this week at practice, Maynard said, along with successfully breaking out of their defensive zone.

“We didn’t look around in our zone, who’s open, cover those areas. And when there’s a rebound we gotta look for sticks. We can’t just be looking for where the puck is, you’ve got to look for empty sticks because that’s what scores goals,” Maynard said.

The Coyotes play the Summerland Steam at home on Wednesday, and then head to Summerland on Friday, Sept. 27 in the second of back-to-back match ups with the Steam.