In all his years of playing hockey, Isaiha Berra has never won a provincial championship.
Neither have 17 of his Prince George Coast Inn of the North midget Tier 1 Cougar teammates.
They intend to end that drought next Thursday night in Comox.
"None of us except (forward) Myles Mattilla, who won it in Quesnel, have ever won a provincial championship so this is our last chance to do so," said Berra, 17, a third-year midget who plays right wing for the Cougars.
"We've worked hard for this all year and I'm thinking it's going to be a great challenge to end the season and for a lot of us to end our minor hockey careers off."
Last year, the Cougars got close, losing in the provincial final 4-1 to Kelowna. Six Cougars remain from that team.
On Sunday the Cougars face one of the toughest teams in the seven-tournament right off the bat when they take on Seafair of Richmond at 10:30 a.m., followed at 8 p.m. by a game against Comox Valley.
"Seafair beat us by one goal in the Kamloops tournament but I think they're looking our way thinking we're the team to beat and I think that a lot of people are," said Berra, the Cougars captain.
"This team's bond is incredible, we're such a good team off the ice. We have very little separation amongst the group and there's a good leadership core from the older guys and mutual respect for one another and that's been a key for this team. We have a lot of depth on the ice and that gives us confidence and more importantly it kind of intimidates who we're playing."
The other teams entered in the provincial tournament are Kelowna, Comox Valley, North Vancouver, Nanaimo and the Northeast Trackers of Fort St. John. All teams play six games and the two top teams meet in the final Thursday night at 8 p.m.
The Cougars compete in the Okanagan Mainline Amateur Hockey Association and this season they won the midget Tier 1 rep division with a 9-3-1 record on the way to a 40-8-4 season record. They are the first Prince George team to win an OMAHA regular season title since the city joined the league five years ago in a bid to give the top teams in the Prince George Minor Hockey Association more competition.
"We definitely do have a chance to win it but there will be a few other teams thinking the same thing," said Cougars head coach Rob Millar. "We played Kelowna seven times and even though we beat them five times and tied one, all the games were very close. Two of our eight losses came against Seafair and they were both 5-4 games."
The Cougars won the Edmonton tournament, finished second in Prince George, lost to Seafair in the Kelowna tournament final, beat Kelowna in overtime to win the Kamloops tournament, and beat North Shore to claim the bronze in the Richmond International tournament.
"The reason we had success is because of our depth, we've had major contributions this year from all 19 players and it's really noticeable up front," said Millar. "A lot of teams are sometimes down to two lines and at best three lines and we get all 11 forwards contributing."
James Gordon centres the top scoring line with Berra and Markus Plamondon, and Myles Mattilla, Treavor Gagne, Chris Metcalfe, Darian Long are all consistent producers, with plenty of offensive-zone support from Dylan Krahn, Greg Dakus, Mitch Truefitt, Devin Sutton and James Gordon.
Goaltending, with Jake Sweet and Jamie Ferguson in net, is also a strong suit for the Cougars, especially with the team playing two games a day, like they will in Comox. The Cougars also have mobile, puck-movers and considerable depth on defence with Chris Jandric, Jeremy Gervais, Austin Crossley, Jarin Sutton, Bret Wakabayashi and Jordan Waterston.
The Cougars have also had consistent success on special teams and they focused on staying out of the penalty box as the least-penalized team in the Okanagan league.
Whether that's enough to get the Cougars over that provincial hump remains to be seen, but for seven of them, including Berra, Waterston, Gagne, Metcalfe, Dakus, Truefitt and Plamondon, all third-year midgets, there's no tomorrow.
