This campaign isn’t for the squeamish and with 13 games to go it looks like Powell River Kings and their fans are in for quite a ride.
It has been an up and down season for them thus far but on the weekend they climbed to the highest and plummeted to the lowest point in just two days.
After a thrilling game and deserving better than the 5-4 overtime loss at home to top-ranked Penticton Vees on Friday, January 18, the Kings dropped a 7-1 decision to Nanaimo Clippers on Saturday.
If the current trend continues, fans will be asking for a pharmacy not a concession for their needs between periods.
Up against the odds with starters Matt Scarth, Luke Ripley, Evan Richardson and Jarryd Leung out, the Kings dressed three lines and a ton of courage to face the Vees on Friday.
They went toe to toe with the defending Royal Bank Cup champs and on the opening rush overran the defence. Luke Nogard’s shot bounced off Vees’ goalie Chad Katunar and James Neil shot it over him.
The 1-0 lead at 0:19 held up until the Vees scored an even strength goal at 15:46 and then an ugly shorthanded one at 19:04.
Kings outscored the Vees three to one in the second period on one goal from Teagan Waugh and two from Matt Dupont to lead 4-3 after two periods but the real story happened in the third.
Kings played some great hockey to keep the Vees in check and even scored what looked to be a timely insurance goal on the powerplay with two minutes to go in the game.
JP Villeneuve finished off some huge powerplay pressure in close but the referee blew it down when he lost sight of the puck.
The entire crowd at Hap Parker Arena, except for the official, tracked the puck all the way and the referee apparently had second thoughts on his rush to judgement.
“He had the courage to come over and say he blew it,” said coach and general manager Kent Lewis, “and I respect that from an official.”
Nonetheless, play continued with the score 4-3, and given the opportunity the Vees succeeded in tying the game with 28 seconds to go. They went on to win the game with seven seconds left in the first overtime period.
Heartbreaking for sure, but at the same time Kings gutted out a pretty good game under difficult conditions for a final score of 5-4.
The result was bittersweet for Lewis. “I liked our effort and I thought we showed a lot of poise and did a lot of good things.”
Captain Waugh spoke of the importance of the game. “We had that one circled on our calendar because of what happened last year,” he said. “It was one of the top teams in our league coming into our barn. We had to bring the best effort we could and I thought we did that tonight. We controlled the play, but the ref stole one from us at the end.”
It was a positive atmosphere for sure, but the team’s past inability to feed off such a game should have raised red flags against Nanaimo on Saturday.
The nasty history of good game-bad game came back to haunt the Kings. Fans filed out thoroughly confused as to why their team can’t put a string of good games together.
Kings kept pace with a sluggish Nanaimo team early and evened the score 1-1 on Brandan Smith’s first of the year at 9:10 of the first period.
Nanaimo’s netminder Derek Dun slammed the door, however, while the Kings’ swung wide open and Jonah Imoo was pulled after the fifth goal en route to a 7-1 drubbing.
The hill gets steeper this week with three road games against Island Division foes.
On Friday, January 25, they play Cowichan Valley Capitals, on Saturday they will be in Victoria against the Grizzlies, and the road trip finishes in Port Alberni with a game at 2 pm on Sunday, January 27 against Alberni Valley Bulldogs.
