This past weekend was not ideal for the Hershey Bears. Ideal may be too kind of a word. 
Head coach Derek King called Saturday’s loss to Bellville embarrassing after the 6-3 defeat.  

On Sunday evening things began to look better, there was pace, there was grit, there was energy.  The problem was there was no scoring.  While Hershey had opportunities they failed to capitalize.  Meanwhile Bellville put two to the back of the net for 2-0 lead after the first break. You can have all the energy you want but if the biscuit doesn’t cross the goal line, the result will not be what you want and it wasn’t on Sunday with a 5-2 loss as Bears faithful filtered out in the second period. 

Coach King though, will not happy with the result, was happy with the effort. 
“I did like our compete, we stuck together out there.”

Later King added that the energy was there. 

What went wrong

Across the weekend, a few clear issues showed up:

• Defensive breakdowns: Belleville consistently created high-danger chances and capitalized.
• Lack of offense: Hershey had trouble finishing opportunities.
• Momentum swings: When Belleville scored, Hershey had difficulty responding.
• Inconsistency
  Instead of dictating play, the Bears were often reacting.

So where does Hershey go from here? The Bears are on the road for 9 of their next 11 games, and won’t see Giant Center after this upcoming Sunday for three weeks. 

Both King and Louie Belpedio think that is a good thing as Hershey seems to play better on the road and as Louie put this stretch is full of opportunity.

“We play a lot of teams that are right there with us and behind us, we like to call them four point games…. and we just want to build momentum for the playoffs.”

Sounds like a good time to find consistency that has been lacking and very apparent at times this season. 

In postgame King was asked about the locker room and leadership at this time for the young players. 

Some fans have had a meltdown over King saying the guys don’t want to hear from him at this point in the season. These fans need to relax.  This is a comment that was said multiple times by previous bench bosses for the Bears and the point is leaders in the locker room are the voices that matter. 

King even acknowledged that it may be a good idea to take some of the injured guys and vets on the road. We will see if that happens.

Whether it does or not the challenge for Hershey doesn’t change.  They need to respond after this past weekend and take a step forward.

We shall see.