It was another tough weekend at the Jamestown Savings Bank Ice Arena for the Jamestown Ironmen, who dropped a pair of games against the Port Huron Fighting Falcons, the top team in the NAHL’s North Division.

But, head coach Dan Daikawa insists his team is confident and not far away from turning the corner.

Photo by Phil Genco.

“[Saturday’s game] was the first time we thought we could have won — while losing,” Daikawa said. “We had better scoring chances, played a better game overall and I think all the boys knew we could have won that game.”

Saturday’s loss was a 2-1 defeat that saw the Ironmen show a commitment to defense, something that has been bolstered by recent additions of John Roisum and Mike Zagari.

“Roisum’s a guy that hasn’t played a lot this year,” Daikawa said. “We kind of threw him under the bus and said ‘here ya go’ but I thought he played pretty well. We like the guys we’re getting because they’re better puck movers.”

It showed. While Jamestown had troubled gelling on offense, they did a much better job of clearing the zone and allowed just 28 shots Saturday night. Friday night, though, the team came out flat, which was the key concern for Daikawa.

“I just didn’t think we brought it like we have in weekend’s past,” he said. “We played much better in the last period, but we have to compete every day and we didn’t [Friday]. And of course, it cost us.

While Jamestown lost both games this weekend, it didn’t hurt in the standings. Although it didn’t help either, the Ironmen stayed seven points back of Michigan, who also lost both of their games this past weekend.

The Ironmen will again be off this weekend while Michigan will go play two games against Springfield. That will give Michigan five more games played than Jamestown, thus meaning a seven-point difference isn’t all that much.

“We’re still confident,” Daikawa said. “The boys knew our goal was to make the playoffs and we know we’re still right there.

“We think can make some noise in the playoffs too. A lot of teams tell us we’re one of the hardest teams to play against in our division. Port Huron’s had our number, but I don’t think they want to play us.”

Again, the seven-point difference isn’t a whole lot. Jamestown has games in hand with Michigan and still play three more games against the Warriors. In addition, Jamestown has nine games left with third place Traverse City.

Of course, the team will have to turn it around soon.

“Teams have a little tougher schedules than us,” Daikawa said. “There are a still a lot of opportunities for us.”

Any turnaround wouldn’t be a large surprise, though. The Ironmen have made a habit of competing in every game only to come up a little short. Throw Friday’s game out the window and Jamestown has actually outscored opponents (by a goal) over their last eight games. Unfortunately for Jamestown, they only won three of those. But the close losses, as Daikawa said, aren’t a bad sign.

“We have to have a 60-minute commitment,” he said. “And a 60-game (season length) commitment.”

Daikawa was most excited though about the growing endorsement of the Ironmen from the City of Jamestown. Again the Ironmen brought in around 1,750 fans over the two days and have seen a large increase in attendance over the past few months.

“It’s exciting to see the increasing amount of Ironmen hats and Ironmen sweaters around town,” Daikawa said.

“We dove head first into the community and that’s what we really wanted. We know it’s going to continue to grow and our players understand how important it is to be involved.

“We want to be here. We want to be a part of the community. We want to be the big thing in town and have people waiting in line to get tickets. And the boys feed off it. They love seeing more and more fans. We want to make this place a great a home-ice advantage.”