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T-birds fly off with major midget title

Cariboo Cougars denied in quest for repeat championship
It's all over for the Cariboo Cougars.
Their season ended Saturday night at Kin 1 with them watching the Fraser Valley Thunderbirds' celebratory dogpile after they beat the Cougars 4-2 to complete a two-game sweep and clinch the B.C. Hockey Major Midget League championship.
The Thunderbirds scored three power-play goals, including two halfway through the second period, to go ahead of the defending league champions 3-1. Goals by Travis Halladay and Justin Plett, 21 seconds apart gave the Fraser Valley the margin of victory needed to put the wraps on their first-ever major midget league playoff championship.
"A couple of unfortunate penalties taken by us and they capitalized on the power play, but at the end of the day, the better team won, they were better than us this weekend," said Cougars head coach Tyler Brough, who took over the team from Trevor Sprague last summer and brought the team to their fourth consecutive league championship series.
"It's unfortunate. I don't think they're a better team than us but they were better this weekend. Their top guys were better than our top guys. They've been doing it for us all year and unfortunately it wasn't going in for them. We had plenty of opportunities and a couple goalmouth chances that didn't go in. Whether we didn't earn the bounces or what, they're a good hockey team and they deserved to win, they outplayed us this weekend."
Plett opened the scoring for the visitors early in the second period on the power play about a minute before Cougars defenceman Colton Kitchen cashed in a Cariboo power-play chance to knot the score.
Brett Fudger brought the Cougars to within a goal 11:59 into the third period, scoring his second of the weekend series. With about five minutes left, Cougars forward Lane Goodwin nailed the goalpost. The Cougars got goalie Marcus Allen to the bench but Dylan Stoltz sealed it with an empty-netter with 33 seconds left.
Fraser Valley outshot the Cougars 35-24. Dawson Pelletier notched the win in net for Fraser Valley.
The Cougars were without two of their top forwards. Brandon Rowley was sidelined for both games with a shoulder injury. Hunter Floris, who finished the regular season tied with Plett for most goals in the league, each with 36, had to have his appendix removed Saturday and was resting in hospital when the teams took to the ice for Game 2. 
"He was in bad shape, he had a gut ache (Friday) and he played, but by the end of the game we knew something wasn't right and thankfully Pam (Cougars trainer Solmonson) was on top of it and centralized to his appendix and they got on top of it," said Brough.
 "Unfortunately for him and for the team he was unavailable to us. Any time you take the leading goalscorer in the league out of the lineup you're not going to replace him. He scored from big goals for us this year and we needed some big goals this weekend but just didn't get them."
Brough said his team played much more inspired hockey than what he saw from the bench in a 5-2 loss to the T-birds on Friday. The effort and work ethic which led to a strong second-place 30-7-3-0 finish in the regular season was missing in the first game of the series. Brough said his team was thoroughly outplayed in the opener and if not for Allen being sharp in net the final outcome would have been a lot more lopsided.
"(Friday) I was very disappointed in our effort," said Brough. "We prepared all week, we watched a lot of video and worked n our special teams and we knew what they were going to do to us, but game time came around and we didn't implement it. We were late to pucks and losing battles all over the ice and we're not successful when we lose battles."
At least nine of the Cougars, who are graduating the midget ranks, won't be back and most of them have junior team positions lined up. That list includes Brennan Malgunas and Craig MacDonald (both recruited to play for the Spruce Kings), Riley Krane (Regina Pats), Mason Richey (West Kelowna Warriors), Floris (Vernon Vipers) Marcus Allen (Grande Prairie Storm), and Zack Minnaker (Fort McMurrray Oil Barons).
The Thunderbirds, who finished third in the league with a 25-13-1-1 record, will host the Pacific regional championship next weekend in Abbotsford against the Alberta champion (either Lethbridge of Knights of Columbus of Edmonton) in a best-of-three series. That will determine who goes to the Telus Cup national midget championship, April 23-29 in Sudbury, Ont.
The Cougars will host their spring camp May 4-6 at the Elksentre.