The Cariboo Cougars are off to the semifinals at the Mac’s Tournament in Calgary.
The Cougars defeated the Okanagan Rockets, their B.C. Hockey Major Midget League rivals, 4-3 Tuesday afternoon in a quarterfinal playoff to move to within a win of the championship game on New Year’s Day.
Brennan Bott led the way offensively for Cariboo, with two goals and an assist. Alex Ochitwa scored on a Cougars’ power play with six minutes left in the third period to put the Cats ahead 3-2 and Fischer O’Brien provided the game-winning goal with about four minutes to play.
The Rockets stormed the Cariboo net and with the extra skater cut the lead to 4-3 with less than two minutes to play, but the Cougars withstood the onslaught. Jordan Fairlie made 40 saves in goal for the Cougars.
Both teams had 3-1-0 records heading into the game.
The Cougars will face the Calgary Buffaloes in a semifinal today at 5 p.m. PT. The other semifinal, which started at 2 p.m. PT, pitted the Saskatoon Blazers against the Moose Jaw Warriors.
The semifinals winners play in the final Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. PT.
The games being webcast live on sportscanada.tv.
