In four WHL seasons, James Dobrowolski has played 278 of a possible 288 regular season games.
In a sport as rough as hockey, just 10 missed games is an admirable record of longevity.
As successful as he's been cutting the ice in his major junior career, come playoff time the 20-year-old Prince George Cougars has always been left with an empty feeling. He missed the playoffs last year with Cougars and was excluded from the postseason his previous two seasons with Prince Albert .
Now, in his final season of junior eligibility, with his Cougars needing just one point to clinch a playoff berth, Dobrowolski feels the time is now to wipe out that glitch on his own record.
"This will be my first crack at the playoffs ever and I'm really looking forward to it," said Dobrowolski, a native of Vernon. "I've never played a playoff game and I really want to try to make it count."
The Cougars' playoff picture improved dramatically last weekend when they won two of three road games to move three points ahead of the Kamloops Blazers. The Cougars are one point behind the seventh-place Everett Silvertips, who moved ahead of Prince George with a 2-1 win over Tri-City Wednesday night.
The Blazers and Cougars finish with a home-and-home series Friday in Kamloops and Saturday at CN Centre. The Blazers have lost five of six games this season against Prince George and must beat the Cats twice in regulation time to make the WHL's Sweet 16.
Last weekend's Cougar trip started with an 8-0 hammering of the Vancouver Giants that ended a four-game losing streak. They went on to beat Seattle 5-1 and lost 6-3 Sunday to Tri-City.
"We knew those first two were the real important games because those teams are close with us, especially Seattle, and we put in real good efforts and controlled those games," said Dobrowolski. "That was a huge confidence-builder because we were on a bit of slide there. We've won the last five games against Kamloops so we feel really comfortable playing against them."
On the other side of the playoff coin from Dobrowolski is Cougars defenceman Sena Acolatse, who has never missed the playoffs in four WHL seasons with Seattle and Saskatoon. The 20-year-old native of Hayward, Calif., has 28 playoff games under his belt. He plans to add to that postseason resume with the Cougars, starting somewhere on the road next weekend.
"The regular season doesn't matter once playoffs hit -- it's a grind and I've been kind of sharing what I've been through with the guys and hopefully they can use that to their advantage," Acolatse said.
Ideally, the Cougars want to avoid finishing eighth, which would pit them against either Portland or Spokane in the first round. A seventh-place finish would mean taking on Kelowna in the first round, a much shorter roadtrip.
"We first have to clinch playoffs but we're aiming for seventh and we want to get as many points as we can so we're hopefully going into playoffs on a bit of a hot streak and feeling good about ourselves," said Acolatse.
The other graduating Cougar, forward Taylor Stefishen, joined the WHL this season after two seasons of NCAA hockey at Ohio State and two years in the BCHL with Langley.
"I've played in playoff games in the BCHL and in college and it's definitely an exciting time, when you kind of separate the men from the boys," Stefishen said. "This is a huge weekend and I'm confident the team will get the job done and we'll get into playoffs and have a good run."
