Any of these words could describe the Centennials’ season.

The Merritt Centennials’ 2015-16 BCHL campaign is over. It’s the first season in six years that the team has failed to make the playoffs.

Anyone and everyone who follows and supports the Centennials will no doubt have a different take on the six months just past (hence the fill-in-the-blank in this story’s headline) and whether it can or should be considered a success, a failure, or something in between.

There were definitely some highs in the season just completed, such as the two home-ice wins over the Penticton Vees (especially the second one), the modest three-game win streak to close out 2015, and the two late-season overtime victories over Salmon Arm and Alberni Valley.

There were also more than a few lows — the pair of losses to sad-sack Surrey (the second at home by a score of 11-8) comes to mind immediately, along with the team’s less-than-stellar record against Island teams (2-8-0-1) and Interior rival Trail (1-4-0-1). The latter cost the Centennials a playoff berth, no two ways about it.

It is this scribe’s humble opinion that there were several clear-cut factors that resulted in the Centennials’ season record of 23-30-4-1, and their fifth-place finish in the six-team Interior division of the British Columbia Hockey League. 

1. So many new faces in so many new places

When you start a hockey season at the Junior A level with just six returning players in the line-up, there’s going to be a very steep learning curve. Add to the mix a new head coach and GM and new assistant coach and assistant GM and you have the recipe for some significant growing pains in the early going.

The Penticton Vees face the same challenge every September in terms of player turnover, but their talent pool is so high-end and their veteran head coach so driven, the problems get resolved in a matter of a game or two. A blue-collar brigade like the Centennials needs time to work things out. This year, it just happened to be the better part of a season before everyone seemed to be operating on the same page. 

2. A penalty kill that got killed

After the first week of the season, the Cents’ PK was 17th-ranked in the BCHL. That’s last folks. Fifty-eight games later, Merritt’s penalty-kill was in exactly the same place. On Nov. 1, it hit a season-low of 59.8%, fully a dozen percentage points below the next lowest team. Playing a man down was the Centennials’ Christmas present to the opposition each and every night.

Whether it was lack of puck pressure, an inability to close down shooting lanes, a failure to close the back door, or a combination of all of the above — who knows. Nothing seemed to go right, and it cost Merritt games left, right and centre. They finished at -22 when comparing powerplay goals for and against.

Things did improve after Christmas, and the team finally reached the 70% plateau (70.1% to be exact) on the last day of the regular season. It just took way to long to get things corrected.

3. Consistently inconsistent

It was about as elusive as a pot at the end of a rainbow.Head coach Joe Martin lamented its absence in just about every post-game interview he gave. Consistency — the ability to play at a high level, with the same degree of energy, grit, effort, determination and intelligence night in, night out. The Cents lacked it from one game to the next, from one period to another. In fact, one never knew what to expect as each shift hit the ice.

There were nights when the Cents sparkled for 60 minutes, but they were few and far between.

Martin juggled lines, sat players, even shook things up with a couple of moves at the trade deadline to try and get the message across — you show up every night to play, and there’s no substitute for hard work. Merritt’s 6-4-0 record in its final 10 games might be an indication that the message has finally been received. Next season’s start will be the real litmus test. 

4. Collectively too individualistic

When the going got tough — in games and in the season — this year’s Centennials players were guilty of too often trying to do it all by themselves, of abandoning the belief in their team and teammates, and flying solo. Martin did not want to call it selfishness; he sincerely believed his players’ hearts were in the right place. But going it alone isn’t going to work nine-and-a-half times out of ten in the BCHL, whether it’s a D-man rushing the puck from coast to coast, or a forward wanting to dangle their way through six opponents in the offensive zone.

When the Cents believed in their mates and operated as a cohesiveness unit, they were successful; when they didn’t, they got burned more often than not..

5. The best defence is team defence

When you have the youngest goaltending tandem in the BCHL, and neither netminder is a proven starter, you’d better be ready to support them with some pretty heads-up defence. For too much of the season, the Cents did not. They allowed their puckstoppers to be shelled game in, game out. Merritt was outshot in 34 of 58 games. They allowed 30-plus shots on their net in 50 of those outings, 40 or more shots 21 times, and over 50 shots on three occasions.

The Cents’ goal differential (goals for vs goals against) was a sorry -38. Not the worst in the league by any means, but certainly not the way to shape a winning season.

This is not an indictment of this year’s blueline brigade. Each and every player on the team needed to be more accountable in their half of the ice.

So there you have it — one person’s look back at the keys to the Cents’ 2015-16 season — for better or worse.