Storm coach Bliss Littler probably was glad it didn't seem like a different holiday again.

For the past month, Tri-City has starred in "Groundhog Day."

Just like the character in Bill Murray's most famous movie that didn't co-star a gopher, Slimer or Scarlett Johansson (that'd be an interesting top line for a hockey team), the Storm has relived the same day over and over lately.

Get down early, take bad penalties, give up power-play goals, lose by between two and five goals. Rinse and repeat.

Prior to Monday's 2-0 win over Waterloo, Tri-City's losing streak had hit six. It wasn't pretty on the ice. It wasn't pretty in the locker room.

"Unless you've been in a locker room, you don't understand," Littler said. "We feel horrible. Your food tastes like crap. You don't sleep well. Your quality of life is proportional to whether you win or lose your last game."

So the Storm players might enjoy a restful week that includes plenty of good eating now.

Sure, it was just one win in a 60-game season. Tri-City has to still be considered a longshot to make the playoffs while trailing fourth-place Sioux Falls by 10 points with 17 games left.

But winning on Monday sure leads to a different week than if the Storm had to lug a seven-game losing streak onto the bus for a trip to Chicago on Thursday.

"This is a pick-me-up," said right wing Jordan Willert. "We've battled hard the last few weeks. Today we battled hard for three periods.

"It was one of our better games. It feels great. The mood in the locker room is so excited."

This and that

* Anybody ever wondered how many government workers in central Nebraska are hockey fans?

Holding a Presidents Day hockey game at 1:05 p.m. answers that question. Although the paid attendance was announced at 1,663, the actual attendance was closer to one-fourth of that.

And that number received a boost from the presence and enthusiasm of the Adams Central choir, which performed the national anthem.

Maybe there's a reason that Presidents Day isn't a huge hockey day in the sport's homeland north of the border? Or it might be because Canada isn't big on the president thing, I guess.

* Replacing the Storm at the top of the "going to be a long week" category has to be the girls basketball teams who lost in subdistricts yet are still in wild card contention.

It must be slow moving eight-day span until the district finals. That's a long time to calculate and recalculate possible wild card point totals, figure out who to root for and who to root against.

All this to wait for the scores to roll in on Friday night and see if it's time to get ready for a trip to Lincoln next week.

The addition of the wild card has made for much-improved state tournaments. But in some cases, I'm sure it's also made for increased sales of antacids.