Like the rest of Powell River, its Junior A hockey team is fighting a myriad of colds, coughs and other seasonal maladies which created a huge hole in the lineup on Saturday.
No less than seven players were on the shelf for the game against West Kelowna Warriors, but the Powell River Kings, with the help of their affiliate call-ups, gutted out an exciting 2-1 overtime victory.
The win might be a reward for all the trials and tribulations the Kings endured on the road last week.
They limped through a three-game Interior trip with a number of scratches and even the team bus spent the night in the infirmary.
They were in Kamloops to drop off Stefan Wornig and Carmine Buono at the airport for their appearance in the Canadian Junior Hockey League Prospects game when the mechanical failure delayed their return to Powell River.
Wornig and Buono, in the meantime, joined five other BC Hockey League players and boarded a flight to Vancouver where they met some Hockey Canada representatives and connected to Toronto for the game in Oakville.
“It was an exhausting day,” said Wornig, “and we pretty much went to bed right away.”
Reflecting on the excitement of the event and its importance, he said, “It was a really high-paced game and almost everyone there had scholarships so it was pretty cool to play with a lot of high level players.”
Team West won the game 3-2 and Wornig, who played the second half, got credit for the win when a coin toss between the two goalies determined who would start and who would finish.
He was solid in the net, allowed just a single goal on 15 shots giving his team a chance to win, which they did with 7.3 seconds to go.
Of the experience playing in front of 60 National Hockey League scouts representing every team, Wornig, who is ranked 22nd in North American goalies, said, “no nerves at all, just all excitement from the build up.”
His and teammate Buono’s return was a welcome sight for head coach and general manager Kent Lewis who patched together a lineup for the game against the Warriors Saturday night.
Westside scored in the first period and held the lead all the way to the third before Rylan Ball, the game’s second star, tied it at 5:07 of the third. Then Jeremy Leclerc, on a great solo effort, won it at 1:22 of the first overtime.
In a tight game with very few good scoring chances Kings’ lineup was bolstered by the energy and hustle of five affiliate call-ups.
“Kudos to Chad [van Diemen],” Lewis said, “who has developed a very good relationship with these Junior B teams.
“Tonight was a huge gut check for us,” he said, smiling after the overtime win, “because we had a significant amount of guys out of the lineup. If you play the right way though, regardless of who’s in and who’s out, you will prevail and we got two big points tonight.”
Of Ball’s tying goal he said, “We knew the points were open all night and it was just a case of hitting the net.”
That’s what Ball did and his top- shelf wrister from the point set up the dramatic overtime winner by Leclerc.
“I had some room on the outside coming to the blue line,” Leclerc said, “and the defenceman took a step to the middle so I had a lane to the net. That’s what I call the Luko special,” of the resemblance of his goal to many scored by teammate Jarid Lukosevicius, “protecting the puck to the outside and cutting to the net.”
With just the single game and a very tight race in the division, the win was a big one for the Kings.
“We knew we needed these two points,” Leclerc said, “because you never know what Alberni and Victoria are going to do with their games in hand.”
As it happened both Victoria Grizzlies and Alberni Valley Bulldogs won which sets up a very important week for the Kings.
They travel to Duncan and Nanaimo on Tuesday, January 27, and Wednesday, January 28, and then host Cowichan Valley Capitals for a pair of games at 7:15 pm on Friday, January 30, and 5 pm Saturday, January 31, at Hap Parker Arena.
