An inspired start wasn’t enough Saturday night as the Kootenay Ice suffered their fifth Rec Plex defeat in a row, 6-0 to the Calgary Hitmen.

Their fourth had come Friday night against the Medicine Hat Tigers, who won 2-1.

“We’ve lost five in a row at home now, and it’s wearing on the kids,” said Kootenay head coach Mark Holick. “We still control our own destiny and we can still do what we need to do. We’re just taking a more difficult path to it.”

The destiny they hope to fulfill is to take fourth place in the WHL’s Eastern Conference. The Tigers took that spot Sunday with a win over the Edmonton Oil Kings. Their 86 points puts them one up on the Ice, but Kootenay has one game in hand.

The Red Deer Rebels are two points behind the Ice, and they, in turn, have a game in hand on Kootenay.

“We’ve got to remain positive and have a day off (Sunday) and come back to work here Monday, Tuesday and get ready for Red Deer on Wednesday because that’s a real important game,” said Holick. “We’ll see where we’re at.”

They’ll have to get their Rec Plex scoring touch back, as they’ve netted just two goals in their last three home dates.

Where the Ice are having trouble scoring in Cranbrook, an old teammate certainly wasn’t as Kris Foucault had three goals in a four-point effort for Calgary.

“He’s a shifty guy and has pretty good skills, but we’ve just got to hit him and we didn’t do that (Saturday),” said Kootenay captain Dustin Sylvester.

The first period had a good pace, with back-and-forth action as Kootenay out-shot Calgary 14-12.

“We were pretty excited,” said Sylvester. “We hadn’t been playing well lately, but we wanted to come out hard, and crash and bang. I thought we did a really good job of that in the first, and then we got into penalty trouble.”

Foucault struck on the power play at 4:44 as fans were hollering for an offside call. His cannon from the right dot deflected off the far post and in.

The Hitmen made a habit of crashing Todd Mathews’s crease, and Brayden McNabb was given a cross-checking minor in one of the many post-whistle skirmishes.

That led to another man advantage goal at 8:27, as Misha Fisenko scored off the transition.

The Hitmen exited the weekend with a power play that strikes a league-leading 28 percent of the time.

“You’re playing with fire. They got two in a row, and that was a big, big (momentum shift),” said Holick.

Foucault got his second of the game at 13:17, turning a bouncing puck into a breakaway goal.

In short order, the referees gave the Ice a lengthy 5-on-3 and took it away a minute later on a phantom high-sticking call against Steele Boomer.

The Ice tried to get Foucault off his game, with Matt Fraser getting in a quick elbow to the nose following a faceoff late in the second.

Although Foucault fell to the ice clutching his face, it didn’t have much of a long-lasting effect. Just over a minute into the next period, his long blast from the blue line beat Mathews (31 saves on 35 shots), who was replaced by Nathan Lieuwen (10-for-12).

“He’s deadly,” Holick said, of Foucault. “He’s an offensive guy that has a great shot. He proved it here (Saturday). He doesn’t need a lot of room to get it off, and when he gets it off, it’s a heavy puck.”

Joel Broda (power play) and Ian Schultz rounded out scoring in the third.

At the other end, Martin Jones made 38 saves for his third consecutive blank sheet. Until Saskatoon got a puck past the World Junior goalie yesterday, Jones had hobbled together 188 minutes of shutout hockey.

That’s long enough to watch Avatar, and 16 minutes in previews.

“He’s a world-class goalie, and he represented our country for a reason. He’s one of the best goalies in the world his age,” said Holick.

Granting Jones had to make some good saves, the coach lamented that many shots hit the goalie in the chest.

“He’s a good goalie and did a lot of good things, and there weren’t a lot of rebounds there when we went there.”

Holick said the Ice didn’t drive the net as consistently as they should have.

“We’ve got to drive the mid-lane harder and we’ve got to battle for position harder. We’re at the net front, but we’re not battling in front of their D, we’re not getting sticks on pucks enough and we seem to be missing some pucks as well. We’ve got to find a way to get a couple of greasy, dirty goals. If you can do that, the rest usually takes care of itself.”

On Friday, the Tigers’s Joey Frazer scored on the first shift of the game before Jesse Ismond tied proceedings at 9:18.

Wacey Hamilton scored on his own rebound to close out scoring early in the second period.

Mathews stopped 33 shots for the Ice, while Tyler Bunz sent 31 shots aside.

NOTE — The Ice auctioned off game-worn jerseys on Friday night, and raised more than $8,200 in the process. Kevin King’s sweater garnered the most attention, bringing in $420 for the Kootenay Ice Education Fund.