After three exciting overtime games against Williams Lake Stampeders a couple of weeks ago, Powell River Regals won the right to travel over 1,000 miles to Fort Nelson hoping to win their sixth Coy Cup.
Joining them were the hosts Fort Nelson Yetis, Fort St. John Flyers, qualifying winners over Whitehorse Huskies, and Terrace River Kings, champions of the Central Interior Hockey League.
Twelve skaters and two goalies left Powell River on Sunday, March 22, for the team’s first game on Tuesday, March 24, against the Yetis.
Regals kicked the tournament off with a great start when Andy Welsh scored just minutes into the first period.
John Coyle and Chad Euverman gave them a 3-1 lead in the second but the Regals began to feel the affects of the long trip up to Fort Nelson.
The hometown Yetis’ longer bench eventually prevailed in the third as they outscored the Regals 4-1 in the final period to win 5-4.
Their next contest was Wednesday night against Terrace who, in their opener, had beaten Fort St. John 4-3 in overtime.
Regals started Ryan Fairgray in goal and once again jumped out to the lead but couldn’t hold off the River Kings.
Euverman scored just two minutes into the game and then Coyle, Euverman with his second and Dan Swanson gave them a 4-0 lead midway in the second period before Terrace came roaring back.
“All of a sudden,” said spokesperson Cliff Milne, “boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and they were leading. It wasn’t Ryan’s fault but they were hammering the heck out of us and with the short bench it took its toll.”
Regals’ first three goals were scored on breakaways so it was clear to Terrace that, if they were going to beat Powell River, they had to slow them down and they did.
Fort St. John, in the meantime, handed Fort Nelson their first loss 7-2 so the Regals had their hands full in their must-win game on Thursday against the Flyers.
Mitch Ball, Nick Cecconi and Brock Sawyer added some fresh legs to the lineup to face the Flyers who had ex-Powell River Kings’ Kyle Leahy on their team.
Euverman and Cecconi each scored to stay even with the Flyers 2-2 but a power-play goal late in the first period gave the Flyers a 3-2 lead.
They made it 6-2 in the second and despite numerous power-play opportunities, including a couple of five on threes, Regals couldn’t beat goaltender Troy Hunt to put a dent in the lead.
Winless perhaps, but the trip was worth it. Milne acknowledged hosts Fort Nelson saying, “Ultra first-class tournament and pretty hard to beat. Of all the ones I’ve been to, and even my own that I’ve organized, it was just fantastic.”
As the Regals headed south on the Alaska Highway Terrace earned the bye to the final by beating Fort Nelson 5-3.
In the semifinal Fort St. John crushed Fort Nelson 10-2 and then in the final on Saturday, March 28, they easily beat the River Kings 6-1 to win their first Coy Cup.
“It’s a good start to a new kind of era for the Regals,” said Tod English, manager, despite the early end to the tournament. “The young kids got a taste of a competitive brand of hockey and now that we’ve played these teams we can build on that.”
Looking forward, he said, “We really need a schedule, and if it’s done early then people are more committed. Our plan next year is to play games against teams from the Central Interior, we’ve had confirmation for home and home with Whitehorse and Yellowknife and we hope to have a 16- to 20-game schedule together. We’re going to start right now, this is when we need to start.”
All of this points to another tournament as English announced, “We are going to put in a bid to host the Coy Cup next year.”
Regals would like to duplicate their success when they hosted the championship and hoisted the cup five years ago in 2010.
