The North Peace Hockey League’s Lakeland Eagles lost their third straight game Nov. 17 at home against the Grande Prairie Athletics. Lakeland was out-shot in the game by a margin of 45 to 19.

Fans attending the Lakeland Eagles home game Nov. 17 against Grande Prairie likely reached the conclusion that their team was feeling the adverse affects of a common cold by the end of the night. It’s a synopsis which appeared fitting on a night which saw Lakeland cough up the puck time and time again. And not even former trainer Don “Doc” Fish could have prescribed a remedy to nurse the Eagles back to health in time to earn a ‘W’ in the win column. The Eagles sagged below the .500 mark for the first time in the 2007-’08 North Peace Hockey League season after being out-muscled, out-hustled and out-gunned in a 6-3 loss to the Athletics. The Saturday evening affair saw the Eagles jump out to an early 1-0 lead on Al Anderson’s first of two goals on the night at the 4:43 mark with Lakeland enjoying a powerplay. Assists went to Roland Ducharme and Travis Chalifoux. Grande Prairie got that one back just over seven minutes later with a special teams gem of its own after scoring short-handed to knot things up at 1-1 heading into the second period. The Athletics took their first lead of the game just under two minutes into the middle frame on a goalmouth scramble before Jay Anderson responded for Lakeland at the 3:33 mark on a feed from A. Anderson to put the two clubs back on even terms. Grande Prairie notched its second short-handed goal of the game just over six minutes later on a failed clearing attempt by Eagles’ goaltender Sandford Lamouche to give the visiting club a 3-2 edge. They padded that lead just under two minutes into the final frame before A. Anderson gave Lakeland some life with an unassisted short-handed marker at 11:17 to make trim the gap to 4-3. That was as close as the Eagles would get, however, as Grande Prairie lit the lamp on two more occasions in the final six minutes of play to hand Lakeland its third straight loss. The Eagles, which were out-shot by a lopsided margin of 45-19, tried to improve to 3-3 on the season last Saturday when they traveled to Spirit River for their first meeting of the season against the Rangers. Next home game is Nov. 29 Lakeland’s next home game is Dec. 1 when the club hosts the Grimshaw Huskies. Game time is 8:30 p.m. at H.W. Fish Arena.