The West Kelowna Warriors are sitting proud on the B.C. Hockey League throne.
With their backup goalie in net, they wrapped up their first league title Saturday in West Kelowna, defeating the Chilliwack Chiefs 4-2 to clinch the best-of-seven Fred Page Cup championship four games to two.
For Warriors assistant captain Liam Blackburn, a third-year centre, their win in front of 1,499 fans at Royal LePage Centre in West Kelowna was yet another sign the Warriors are improving with age in the playoffs as they take aim at their first junior A hockey national championship.
"It doesn't come around very often to have a team like this, everyone just bought into one way to play, I think, and we had the size and the skill," said Blackburn, 19, a New Hampshire University NCAA Division 1 recruit from Prince George. "We had some lucky bounces and we had tremendous goaltending this year. It's real special to win such a big trophy for the league, it's not easy to get."
The Cup-winning goal from Kylar Hope came 6:54 into the third period with the Warriors nursing a 2-1 lead, and Blackburn had a hand in it.
"It was a power-play goal; I passed it down to (Rylan) Yaremko and he passed it out front in the slot to Hoper and he shot it top-glove side and scored," said Blackburn.
Garrett Forster opened the scoring on a Warriors' power play less than two minutes in, but the early lead didn't last. Former Cariboo Cougar Ryan Forbes chopped in the rebound to convert the Chiefs' first power-play chance at 3:36 of the first period. Warriors captain Kyle Marino made it a 2-1 game midway through the first period, set up by former Prince George Spruce King forward Bryan Basilico (the game's second star) and Yaremko (who had three assists as the first star).
The Warriors dominated the second period and twice came close to adding to their lead on shorthanded breakaways. Blackburn got behind enemy lines and forced Aidan Pelino to make a blocker save and Basilico just missed the net on his chance.
After Hope gave the Warriors a two-goal cushion, the Chiefs had to start taking some chances and got burned 11:03 into the third when Jonathan Desbiens finished off a 2-on-0 break by putting the puck past Pelino. The Chiefs pulled Pelino off the ice with eight-and-a-half minutes left and with the extra skater, Vimal Sukumaran got them to within two goals. But that's as close as they came.
Warriors goalie Keelan Williams had played just five minutes in the playoffs until Matthew Greenfield went down with an upper-body injury and was forced to sit out after one period of Game 5 Friday in Chillwack. The Warriors lost that game 5-2, but Williams got the start Saturday and was ready for the Chiefs. He kept it a 4-2 game with about three minutes left when he made a super save off Chiefs sniper Jordan Kawaguchi. The Chiefs went on to outshoot the Warriors 38-37.
"It's unreal, there are no words to describe it," said Warriors right winger Jake LeBrun, who started the season with his hometown Spruce Kings, knowing that team was unlikely to make the playoffs. That scenario changed for the 20-year-old in January when he was dealt to West Kelowna.
"If you had told me at Christmas I was going to be winning a BCHL championship in April, I wouldn't have believed it," he said.
The Warriors faced their share of adversity in the playoffs. After a tough opening-round six-game series with the Salmon Arm Silverbacks, they ran into the Penticton Vees, a team they'd beaten only once all season. The Vees had 50 wins and just seven losses in a 58-game regular season and won the first two games of the series in Penticton, but West Kelowna reeled off four straight wins to advance to the third round, a round-robin tournament featuring the three division champions. The Chiefs were first to win three games to advance to the final. The Warriors locked up their spot with a one-goal win over the Nanaimo Clippers.
"It's such a good league and there's so much parity," said Warriors head coach Mark Ferster. "Salmon Arm had a great team and we knew that going into the first round. We certainly didn't have an easy route. We had to bite, scratch and steal.
"In the third round, you go from one night being in the driver's seat to all of a sudden being in the trunk. It's so much different than a seven-game series, where you know where you're at and it builds up in stages."
Ferster, who fills a dual role as general manager, said Warriors' owner Mark Cheyne deserves the lion's share of the credit for giving him what he needed to build a championship team. The Warriors lost in the first round last season and Ferster said the returning leadership group – Hope, Blackburn, Yaremko and Kyle Marino – kept the team focused on what they had to do to win it all this year.
"We had a real good leadership group coming back and I think people don't appreciate that but it's such an important component," said Ferster. "Obviously, getting our goalie, Greenfield, from the USHL around Christmas was good too. It kind of took off from there.
"We traded for a captain (LeBrun) and he just fit in and bought in and he gives us a ton of depth. He's a positive guy and he doesn't care where he plays. Our forward group is pretty deep and he's had to challenge to get minutes but he never complains. After an injury like that (broken collarbone) it took him a while to get going again. He's a big strong guy in the corners and tough to knock off the puck."
Blackburn had 23 points in 26 playoff games, one point shy of Hope atop the BCHL leaderboard, and he's been everything Ferster had hoped when he recruited him from the Cariboo Cougars midget ranks three years ago.
"He's a special player and it has been fun to watch him for three years because some nights you're in awe," said Ferster. "Fair or not, I compare him to Pavel Datsyuk at our level. He keeps the puck on his stick for a long time and he's competitive and works hard. Special players do special things and he does them on a nightly basis."
Ferster is in his fifth season at the helm of the Warriors and has coached in the league for 17 years, including stints in Salmon Arm and Victoria. The 47-year-old native of Prince Albert, Sask., got the Silverbacks to the 2004 final. This is his first BCHL championship and Blackburn says his coach is well-deserving of it.
"He probably works harder than any coach I've ever played for or ever seen," said Blackburn. "He never leaves the rink, he's always watching video trying to find a way to beat systems. He's just such a hardworking coach."
The Warriors move on to the Crescent Point Energy Western Canada Cup which starts next Sunday in Estevan, Sask. They'll face the Portage Terriers (Manitoba), Brooks Bandits (Alberta), Estevan Bruins (host team) and the Melfort Mustangs (Saskatchewan).
The two finalists will advance to the RBC Cup national championship tournament, May 14-22 in Lloydminster, Sask.
