Crushers look to end '09 with wins

The News
NEW GLASGOW - If you want to see the Pictou County Weeks Junior A Crushers play at home again this year, tonight's your last chance.
The Crushers will be facing off against the Bridgewater Lumberjacks for their last game at John Brother MacDonald Stadium for 2009.
It's the first of a three-game week the team has scheduled before going home for the holidays and will determine what position they will enter 2010 in.
Currently they are sitting behind Truro with 31 points in the Bent Division ahead of Bridgewater which has 30.
Friday night the Crushers will travel to Amherst to play the Ramblers and on Sunday they will face off against Bridgewater on the road.
Three wins is what they want.
"If we pull them off, we'll get a little breathing room in our division, and be on our way to catching Truro," said defenceman Trent MacDonald. "That's a big goal for us to get the six points to end the year off."
The Crushers haven't played either Bridgewater or Amherst since October.
"This is a measuring stick," said Crushers head coach Troy Dumville. "Last time we did this we went into the Sunday night game in Bridgewater with 10 healthy players and we just ran out of gas. We're hoping our conditioning is better this time around. We're going to have a bigger bench and we're hoping that we can be a little bit more prepared."
While playing three games in four days isn't particularly uncommon, it will put a strain on the Crushers defence, which has only four full-time D-men right now.
The team is making a temporary addition to the roster to get them through the week.
"We're going to add Josh Desmond from the Midgets in Dartmouth who will be a good addition for us," Dumville said.
The coaching staff is waiting for the QMHL to finish their trading period to see what players will be returing home before making a permanent addition to the team.
If nothing comes from that, the team may have to make a trade, Dumville said.
"There's a lot of irons in the fire," he said.