They passed out a couple thousand rally towels to the fans who showed up Monday at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena to cheer on the Prince George Spruce Kings playing for the crown jewel of the B.C. Hockey League – the Fred Page Cup championship series.
Down 2-0 in the best-of-seven series, the Spruce Kings needed all the help they could get to hold off the Wenatchee Wild in Game 3 on the series and the fans did their part trying to white out the Wild’s run for the championship.
But they couldn’t keep Zak Galambos from finding the net when it mattered most, late in the second overtime period. He jumped into the play and intercepted a pass out of a crowd in the corner into the slot intended for Spruce Kings winger Nolan Welsh and the Wild defenceman lifted a high shot in over the glove of goalie Evan DeBrouwer to cinch a 4-3 victory for the visitors from Washington state.
Now, if the Spruce Kings can’t find a way to run the table and do nothing but win the rest of the series, those rally towels could become crying towels.
“It’s unbelievable, all the boys are tired and we stuck with it and we got the ‘W’” said Galambos, 21, a native of Walnut Creek, Calif. “I was just standing at the top with the winger and there was a little scrum in the corner and I kind of read the defenceman and got to the net.
“It was just hard work by the boys, they turned the puck over and we got it in the back of the net. Both teams were playing hard and we just got lucky on this one.”
The Wild will have a chance to wrap the first BCHL championship in the team’s three-year history in the league with a win tonight in Game 4. Wenatchee is trying to become the first American team to win the championship since 1979, when the Bellingham Blazers beat the Kamloops Rockets for the title.
Wenatchee forced overtime with the tying goal nine minutes into the third period. Defenceman Jacob Modry fired from just inside the blueline and his high shot got through a screen in front of DeBrouwer. It was the first goal of the season for Modry, playoffs or regular season.
Unfortunately for the Kings, they had no answer for that goal.
“We played well enough to win tonight and we’re in pretty good shape as a team, getting to the second OT like that, hopefully we wore them down a bit and can jump on them (Tuesday) in our rink and go one at a time,” said Kings head coach Adam Maglio.
“We were good tonight and again they capitalized on a bit of bad puck management but I thought we deserved to win that game. It’s a tough one to swallow not but we can’t think about where the series is at, we just have to win one and go from there.
“This is the best team we’ve faced in the playoffs, but in saying that, we have confidence as a group that we can go win four at the end of the day it doesn’t matter how you do it, you’ve just got to do it.”
Both teams had some great chances to end it in the fourth period. Ben Brar had the puck on his stick after Ethan de Jong fired on net but Brar missed on the rebound, 15 minutes into the extra session. At the other end, DeBrouwer came up with a show-stopping pad-down save to rob Matt Dorsey with a minute left in the first overtime.
Lucas Sowder nearly triggered a Wild celebration 5:25 into the second OT, leaving the puck uncovered in the crease after a wraparound attempt - the best chance of the period before Galambos scored.
After losing 4-0 and 4-2 in Wenatchee, the Kings took advantage of familiar surroundings and played their best game of the series, which makes the heartache of losing Game 3 that much more difficult to accept.
“It’s a really tough loss for us but I think that we’re going to bounce back,” said Kings centre Blake Hayward, who scored two goals Monday. “It’s a good opportunity for us, down 3-0, and it’s going to make a real good story when we come back.
“It happens all the time, L.A. did on their road to the cup a few years ago and Victoria did it this year (the Grizzlies erased a 3-0 deficit to beat the Alberni Valley Bulldogs in the BCHL’s first round) and we’re going to do it, starting (with Game 4 in Tuesday).”
For the first time in the series the Spruce Kings seemed to match the Wild’s speed which had proven so deadly in the opening two games. But the result was the same, another loss, and this time there’s no room for error.
“It’s not over yet, we’ve got another day and as our veteran players know and our younger players will find out, series like these you can come back and our team especially, we can do this,” said Kings captain Kyle Johnson. “Tonight was a step in the right direction but we have room to grow.
“They play a really fast game and it kind of shocked us in Game 1 and we’ve slowly adjusted. Winning four in a row will be hard but if we are ever going to win four in row it will be the last four when we’re adjusted to how they play and we can take them.”
The only goal of the second period, Hayward’s second of the night, put the Spruce Kings ahead 3-2 and it came as a result of some hard work by Patrick Cozzi. Cozzi took the puck from linemate Nolan Welsh and kept his feet moving as he went behind the goal line, drawing two Wild checkers with him. Cozzi dug the puck out for Hayward, who streaked in from the left side and ripped a hard shot high in behind Austin Park.
The Wild grabbed the early lead, pouncing on a turnover at the Kings’ blueline when playoff scoring leader Jasper Weatherby picked off Chays Ruddy’s clearing attempt off the boards. Weatherby got the puck in deep for AJ Vanderbeck and he went bar-down with his shot from the face-off circle just 3:14 into the game. His assist extended Weatherby’s playoff point streak to 12 games.
The Wild had a chance to add to the lead on a power play and had the puck in the offensive zone for a good chunk of that time until Ruddy seized an opportunity to atone for his earlier mistake. The Kings defenceman got his body in the way of Dorsey, stripped him of the puck and saw nothing but white ice ahead of him. Ruddy tried a backhand deke on Park and was stuffed. Kyle Johnson followed up on the rebound and Park made the save but the puck kicked out to Ethan de Jong, who shovelled it in along the ice for his 11th of the playoffs. The shorthanded goal, 7:09 into the first, came with six seconds left in Hayward’s slashing penalty.
Three minutes later, the Kings scored at even strength for a 2-1 lead. Chong Min Lee gained the zone with burst of speed on a left wing rush and Hayward went right to the net and was rewarded when Lee, his South Korean-born linemate, fed him a perfect pass just outside the crease for the tap-in.
The Wild power play was firing at 24.2 per cent clip in the playoffs heading into Monday’s game and came through with another goal to get the visitors back to even terms, 13:16 into the period. Wenatchee won the face-off in the Kings’ end and Vanderbeck sent Dorsey in behind the defence with a perfect pass. Dorsey dragged the puck through the crease and while falling, tucked it in the open side behind DeBrouwer.
Wild head coach Bliss Littler admitted the 10-foot-shorter rink at RMCA gave his team some difficulty.
“The smaller sheet definitely caused us some problems, we definitely weren’t as good with our in-zone offence, being able to move the puck side-to-side but it was a fun game to be part of, both teams played very hard,” said Littler.
“They probably had the better of the chances tonight. The two games in Wenatchee were closer than the score and we’re very fortunate to be up 3-0.”
LOOSE PUCKS: The Spruce Kings have more American-born players than the Wild has Canadian content. Holding U.S. passports are Prince George forwards Cozzi (Greenlawn, N.Y.), Dustin Manz (Vanderbilt, Mich.), Brady Bjork (Mequon, Wisc.), Sam Anzai (Los Angeles) and defenceman Jay Keranen (Brighton, Mich). Wild forwards Josh Arnold and Nathan Iannone are Canadians. Arnold is from Cloverdale and Iannone is a native of Penticton…Before the game the teams gathered a centre ice side-by-side in a circle at centre ice to pay tribute to the Humboldt Broncos and the 16 people who died in the bus accident April 6. Don Richmond, who heads the BCHL’s chaplain program and Spruce Kings chaplain Jim Brown offered their prayers on behalf of the Broncos... Longtime Spruce Kings equipment manager Malcolm Poburan was among the sellout crowd of 2,112 who packed the RMCA to witness the first-ever BCHL championship game played in Prince George. Poburan, who has been with the team for 30 years, has terminal cancer and has been in hospice care since January.
B.C Hockey League playoffs
Fred Page Cup championship
Prince George Spruce Kings vs. Wenatchee Wild
(Wild leads best-of-seven series 3-0)
Game 3
Monday’s result
Wild 4 at Spruce Kings 3 (2 OT)
First Period
1. Wenatchee, Vanderbeck 10 (Weatherby) 3:14
2. Prince George, de Jong 11 (Johnson, Ruddy) 7:09 (sh)
3. Prince George, Hayward 6 (Min Lee, Anzai) 10:18
Penalties – Hayward PG (slashing) 4:14, Manz PG (holding) 12:02,
Second Period
5. Prince George, Hayward 7 (Cozzi, Welsh)) 12:00
Penalty – Iannone Wen (hooking) 17:39.
Third Period
6. Wenatchee, Modry 1 (Weatherby) 9:05
Penalties – Sowder Wen (interference) 1:13, Galambos Wen (high-sticking) 9:25, Vanderbeck Wen (unsportsmanlike conduct) 11:00.
First Overtime
No scoring.
Penalties – Anhorn PG (hooking) 2:10, Glamabos Wen (holding) 2:20.
Second Overtime
7. Weantchee, Galambos 7 (Morton, Iannone) 12:16
Penalties – None.
Shots on goal by
Wenatchee 9 10 7 10 5 -41
Prince George11 7 10 11 2 -41
Goal – Wenatchee, Park (W,14-3); Prince George, DeBrouwer (L12-10).
Power plays – Wen: 1-3; PG: 0-5.
Referees – Ward Pateman, Dexter Rasmussen; Linesmen: Nick Albinati, Jeff MacAdams.
Attendance – 2,112.
Scratches –F Drake Usher (healthy), F Daniel Chladek Prince George: F Spencer Chapman (concussion, week-to-week), F Ben Poisson (ruptured spleen, day-to-day), D Oliver Lester (ankle injury, out for season).
