The Prince George Coast Inn of the North Tier 1 midget Cougars won 50 games this season.
Win No. 51 would have made them provincial champions.
But their season ended in defeat Wednesday night in North Vancouver when they lost 4-1 to the Kelowna Rockets in the Tier 1 midget hockey provincial championship final , which meant a silver-medal finish for the Cougars.
"From the start of the tournament, we had a feeling if we played our game we were going to be in the medal final and playing Kelowna was what kind of what we expected to happen," said Cougars captain Thane Anderson.
"We came out as the stronger team and got up 1-0 and in the second period, after all that hockey [six games in four days] both team lost a lot of energy so we knew that the team that scored the second goal would probably get the win. They scored the second goal and then got the third and that really killed us."
Keith Redden scored the lone Cougars goal, the only goal of the first period.
Braden Eliuk notched the gamewinner for the Rockets, 12 minutes into the third period. Garrrick Heathcote, Steven Fiest and Lathan McKinney, with an empty-netter, also scored for the Rockets, who successfully defended their title win from 2013. The Cougars were the 2012 provincial champions and finished third last year.
The Rockets qualified for the Thursday's final when Semiahmoo tied Prince George with 28 seconds left in their round-robin game earlier Wednesday, and that knocked Hollyburn out of final contention.
Leading up to the provincial tournament, the Cougars won four tournaments. They finished the season with a 50-12-5 record.
"Our team's identity throughout the year was we had so much skill that even when we didn't have the energy to win games our skill would pull us through and we would end up winning," said Anderson. "I guess it just didn't do it for us in the final. It might have haunted us in the end that we didn't have a lot of close games all year and didn't know how to play in them."
Heading into the final Kelowna and Prince George, each team has identical 2-0-3 records.
"It was emotional in the final, the boys were on a high getting to the finals but they were tired, they played two games the day before and finished late and we played again [Wednesday morning]," said Cougars head coach Ron Powar.
"Emotionally they were good but physically they were very tired. But they did well. They played a team that won it last year and has some big boys, but they competed. They put on their work boots for four days and that's all you can ask. It's very rare you go through a season with no issues with the kids but these guys were so disciplined and mentally tough it made my job really easy.
Anderson, 18, says he won't pursue a junior hockey career and is too old for major midget, but that's a path some of the Cougars plan to follow. Defenceman Austin Gray, forwards Brayden Dale, Trevor Gagner and Redden, a first-year midget want to keep playing.
In the midget Tier 2 tournament in Penticton the LJ Construction Cougars finished with an 0-2-1 record. Vancouver beat Kelowna 2-1 in Wednesday's final.
At the peewee Tier 1 championships in Vancouver, the Viking Construction Cougars lost 10-1 to Kelowna and ended up with 1-5-0 record. Cranbrook took on Burnaby Winter Club in Thursday night's final.
At the Tier 4 peewee provincials in Richmond, Prince George lost 11-1 to Elk Valley Thursday afternoon to finish at 0-6-0. Elk Valley went in to play host Seafair in the championship game. Prince George lost 6-5 Thursday to Revelstoke to end with a 3-3-0 record.
At the female peewee provincial tournament in Surrey, the host team edged the Prince George Scotiabank Cougars 3-2.. The Cougars finished at 2-2-2. Richmond and North Shore met in Thursday's late final.
In Mission at the bantam tier 2 championship, Vanderhoof won its final game 2-1 over Abbotsford to finish at 1-3-0. Penticton defeated North Shore 4-1 in Thursday's final.
