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Cooper keeps Kings undefeated

Prince George Spruce Kings assistant coach Alex Evin had to disagree with a choice his boss, Kings' general manager Mike Hawes, made from his perch in the press box Saturday at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.
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Prince George Spruce Kings forward Kyle Johnson tries to put the puck in the net past a diving Daniel Davidson of the Surrey Eagles on Saturday at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena. The Kings beat the Eagles 4-1 and are undefeated through four games.

Prince George Spruce Kings assistant coach Alex Evin had to disagree with a choice his boss, Kings' general manager Mike Hawes, made from his perch in the press box Saturday at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.

Hawes was choosing the three stars of the game and had to submit his picks well before the third period ended, before Brad Cooper and the Spruce Kings had put the finishing touches on a 4-1 win over the Surrey Eagles.

The GM had three of his own players on the list to make the post-game curtain call and picked defencemen Liam Watson-Brawn and Dylan Anhorn as the respective first and second stars. They played well and were deserving of the recognition but it's safe to say many of the 814 spectators who showed up to watch were thinking Cooper, the Kings' goalie, deserved first-star status.

Evin, a former B.C. Hockey League goaltender, left no doubt who he was siding with after the 18-year-old Cooper stopped 36 of 37 shots to back the Spruce Kings to victory over the Eagles to complete a two-game weekend sweep of their Mainland Division opponents.

"You saw Brad battle tonight with a lot of traffic where he was just finding loose pucks, whether he was covering them or just trying to locate them, keeping good posture in the net, he was great," said Evin. "He made things look a lot easier probably than they were and he was very deserving of his first star tonight."

Cooper is considered the goalie of the future - the understudy to 20-year-old veteran Evan DeBrouwer. As well as DeBrouwer has been playing lately, if Cooper keeps making saves like he did Saturday, head coach Adam Maglio will have a tough time deciding who to play on any given night.

It was Cooper's first start in a Spruce Kings uniform but he's been through it all before as an affiliated player for the Langley Rivermen. He started two games for Langley last season, won them both, and also saw action in two other games. Cooper spent most of last season with the Burnaby Winter Club midget prep team in the Canadian Sports School Hockey League - the same program that produced Spruce Kings Kyle Johnson, Ethan de Jong, Watson-Brawn, Ben Poisson, Nolan Welsh and Ryan Stack.

DeBrouwer played the previous three games for the Kings and was a deciding factor in all three, including a 26-save shutout of the Eagles on Friday. The presence of DeBrouwer, a three-year junior veteran, and Evin, a seasoned goalie who played five years in the BCHL before he went on to a four-year college career at Colgate University, provides Cooper a rare opportunity for constant feedback from two puck-stopping mentors.

"In practice it's nice because Alex is always there watching me, seeing what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong and Evan is almost like a big brother and it's nice to watch him play and see what he does," said the six-foot-one, 160-pound Cooper, a native of West Vancouver.

"I like to think that I play my own game, to be honest, but it's awesome having those two guys to help. One of my strengths is I track the puck well and I'm pretty quick and I don't play too aggressive. I feel I fill up the space well."

The Eagles must have been feeling that as well. Cooper kept getting in the way of their shots. Coached by Prince George native Brandon West, they came into the weekend with the same record as the Spruce Kings but now have two losses to digest.

"That win was big for us, especially with it being a divisional game - it feels good being in first place and it's early in the season, you can't say much about it, but it's a good start and we're going to build off it," said Cooper.

Just as they did Friday in their 5-0 win over the Eagles, the Spruce Kings scored early. Patrick Cozzi collected his fourth goal in four games, picking up a loose puck in front of the net and chopping it in on his backhand side. The Eagles got that one back late in the period, cashing in on their third power play with a rebound effort from John Wesley.

The Kings got themselves in penalty trouble again in the second period and were forced to kill off a full minute with two in the box and defenceman Chays Ruddy out of the game with a kneeing major and game misconduct after he made contact with Surrey centre Desi Burgart. The Eagles kept the puck in the offensive end most of that time but could manage only a couple quality shots at Cooper.

"Killing that 5-on-3 gave us a ton of momentum and we scored late in the second right after that," said Cooper. "Going into this I had the mindset that I wasn't going to get beat and I was a little nervous, but I felt confident too."

Less than two minutes before the second intermission, Watson-Brawn left his post on defence and was standing almost on the goal-line when Poisson fed him a perfect pass through the crease and he picked the corner low on Eagles goalie Daniel Davidson for a 2-1 Kings' lead.

The top scoring line for the Kings did its part to pad the lead in the third period. Johnson jumped on a rebound and went wide on Davidson after a shifty play at the blueline from Anhorn to get the puck on net. Jarod Hovde put the game out of reach, showing pure hustle with a burst of speed through the slot to beat Cody Schiavon to a rebound for his third goal of the season.

West, born and raised in Prince George, hasn't had much success with his teams coming back to the rink formerly known as the Coliseum. Before the Eagles hired him this summer he spent five seasons with the Salmon Arm Silverbacks and was an assistant coach for one year with the West Kelowna Warriors.

"It's a tough place to play," said West, 33. "I can't think of a year we've come up here and won since my first year with West Kelowna. The Spruce Kings play really well in this rink and it's a real good team they have here this year.

"We play on Olympic-sized ice in Surrey and we played all our exhibition games at home except one. I think we're getting used to the big ice and maybe we get extra time on that ice with the puck, but here it just seemed the puck was bouncing around and we never got settled in. I thought our group worked real hard today. It takes everybody to win hockey games, especially in this rink."

The Kings (3-0-0-1) are off to their best start in five years and after taking seven of a possible eight points in their first two weekends they've jumped to the head of the class in their division.

"As a staff we were excited about a lot of the guys we were bringing in and we believe we're doing the right things right now," said Evin. "Tonight wasn't our greatest 60-minute effort but obviously we found a way to win. We have only three home games in our next 10 or 12 so it was very important to get off to a good start."

The Spruce Kings will be in Chilliwack this weekend for the BCHL Showcase, which will feature all 17 teams. They play the Merritt Centennials Friday at 10 a.m., then face the Victoria Grizzlies Saturday at 4 p.m.