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Kings perfect through first five

Parents join in the fun over family weekend
Kings perfect through first five

by Glen Gibbs Peak Sports It might be too early to say “you’re too late to jump on the bandwagon,” but Powell River Kings are giving fans every reason to get excited this year.

They won their first road game on Wednesday 5-3 over Cowichan Capitals, returned home to post back-to-back shutouts against Langley Rivermen, 5-0 and 3-0 on Saturday and Sunday, and currently sit atop BC Hockey League standings with 10 points.

This was a very impressive effort considering they were hobbled for two of those games with suspensions to first liners Matt Scarth and Evan Richardson.

In Cowichan the Kings’ top story had to be the special teamwork which teased Capitals in a game of A-dair ya. Cohen Adair scored two brilliant shorthanded goals against the Caps, to up his total to four in three games, and his performance had the Caps wishing BCHL had a “decline the penalty” option like the one in the Canadian Football League.

Adair added one other to receive his natural hat trick while Teagan Waugh and Daniel Schuler popped singles and Sean Maguire had his second win in goal with 30 saves.

Kings returned to Hap Parker Arena for a pair of games against Langley on the weekend and most players had their parents in the crowd to cheer them on.

About 30 parents made the trip to Powell River from as far away as New York state.

Gretta Schuler has visited before but still becomes excited at the chance to come to Powell River.

“Daniel loves it here,” she said, “and he was really excited about coming back. I’ve been a very lucky mom because last year I came to Powell River three times. Before he signed on, once for parent’s weekend and once in the playoffs,” she explained, “and when I came in the playoffs I brought three of my kids with me. They were so excited and the team treated them really well.”

It turned out she and the rest of the parents had a lot of fun and they particularly enjoyed the performance of the Kings.

Saturday night Kings blanked the Rivermen 5-0 on goals from Jarryd Leung, Steven Schmidt, Adair, Carter Shinkaruk and Waugh.

Jamie Phillips recorded his first shutout as a King, with a relatively quiet night in goal, stopping all 15 shots directed at the net.

Leung’s mother, Laurie, who hasn’t missed a single game this year, was on her feet to applaud the announcement of her son’s first goal as a King.

“I was getting frustrated,” said Leung, “and it’s nice to get the monkey off my back. I felt bad for Tidy [Brandan Smith],” he said of the goal mouth scramble. “He was going in too but I just hit it as hard as I could. I didn’t know what to do for a celebration so I just jumped in the air.”

Kings celebrated the win with their parents after the game and might have suffered just a little in the 1:30 pm start against Langley on Sunday.

They got off to a slow start but picked up the pace to win 3-0 in a game remarkably similar to the one the night before.

Luke Laszkiewicz got the winner at 3:16 of the second with Waugh and Adair rounding out the scoring in the third.

Maguire answered Phillips in their friendly competition by stopping all 19 shots directed at him and both goalies and the Kings have looked very good so far.

“A good weekend with a lot of action around their net,” said general manager and coach Kent Lewis. “I’m pretty happy.”

Asked about the return of first liners Scarth and Richardson to the lineup on Sunday, he replied, “I’m going to have a hard time telling you which one our first one is. And that’s a good problem to have.”

This week Kings host Alberni Valley at 7:30 pm on Friday October 7, then travel to Langley for a 2 pm start on Saturday, October 8 and 2 pm Sunday, October 9 against Coquitlam Express.