For the Premium Truck & Trailer Cougars, the fast lane to the minor hockey provincials will go through Williams Lake. Good thing the Cougars are figuring out how to beat their southern rivals.
The peewee Tier 2 Cats faced the Williams Lake Timberwolves Sunday at the Kin Centre in the bronze-medal game of their own tournament and skated to a 6-4 victory.
"They've sort of had our number all year -- that's only the second time we've beaten them," said Cougars head coach Don Gaboury. "In all honesty, it was [a game] where no one kid stood out. It was just a really strong team effort. From the goalie out, everybody played really well."
Sunday's meeting was the seventh of the season between the Cougars and Timberwolves. The Cats have now won two of the past three games.
A few weeks from now, the teams will play a best-of-three series and the winner will advance to the provincial championship tournament, March 16-21 in Victoria. The first two games of the playoff series will take place in Williams Lake and the third, if necessary, will be in Prince George.
In Sunday's game, the Cougars withstood some early pressure from the Timberwolves and then shifted their own offence into gear. The Cats were led by linemates Jaxson Danilec, Jovhan Janjua and Daniel Zimmerman. Danilec finished with one goal and three assists, while Janjua and Zimmerman both had two goals and one helper. Riley Gaboury also scored for the Cats and added an assist, and Rychel Lamber had two assists.
In the Prince George nets, Kyle Houghton made some key stops at critical moments.
"He made some big saves early to keep us in it," Gaboury said. "Then once we got up, he just held his ground."
Late in the third period, when the outcome was no longer in doubt, the Timberwolves squeezed a couple pucks past Houghton.
The Cougars were relegated to the bronze-medal game after a 5-1 loss to the Terrace Kermodes in a Saturday semifinal.
"I think they had one kid that scored four goals and they had really good goaltending," Gaboury said.
In Sunday's tournament final, Terrace defeated the Grande Prairie Knights 4-0.
In pool play, the Cougars beat Quesnel 9-4, lost 7-2 to Grande Prairie and downed Kitimat 6-0. In that game, goaltender Kohl Chambers earned the shutout.
Other members of the Cougars are Kienan Miller, Bryce Blackman, Sean Meehan, Cameron Needham, Logan Vennberg, Jake Nohr, Hunter Fanshaw, Alexander Ochitwa, Aiden Reeves and Ashton Kraska. Assistant coaches are Tom Needham and Larry Ochitwa and the team manager is Jason Blackman.
