Penticton common supervisor and coach Fred Harbinson: “The stress is gone. The stress is within the first spherical. While you’ve had a giant common season, it’s hardest mentally within the first spherical.”
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The Penticton Vees have 5 loses prior to now seven months. If they’ll keep away from 4 defeats within the subsequent two weeks, they’ll seize their second straight BCHL crown.
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The Vees face the Alberni Valley Bulldogs within the Junior A league’s best-of-seven Fred Web page Cup championship collection beginning Friday at their South Okanagan Occasions Centre.
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Penticton is 62-4-0-1 on the marketing campaign once you mix the 54-game common season with the primary three rounds of playoffs, and their 3-2 additional time loss final Wednesday to the Salmon Arm Silverbacks in Recreation 4 of their Inside Convention ultimate was their first setback since falling 4-3 in a shootout to the Victoria Grizzlies on Feb. 4.
The group consists of 13 returnees from final 12 months’s squad that went a mixed 59-9-1-2 on their option to hoisting the Cup.
On this 12 months’s common season, Penticton (50-3-0-1) received the Inside Convention and total banners, and completed 35 factors forward of the Bulldogs (31-19-3-1), who have been third within the Coastal and fifth total.
The Vees are runaway favourites right here. They aren’t pressured about that, maintains common supervisor and coach Fred Harbinson.
“The stress is gone. The stress is within the first spherical. While you’ve had a giant common season, it’s hardest mentally within the first spherical,” mentioned Harbinson, whose in his sixteenth season guiding the Vees and capturing for a sixth Fred Web page over that point. “While you get by means of that there’s a launch.
“It’s not only a line. I do know that we’ll play free.”
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Commonplace underdog working apply can be to attempt to play-up publicly the stress on the favorite, however Alberni Valley GM and coach Joe Martin wasn’t having any of that. He says the Vees are a veteran group accustomed to such issues.
“They’ll be dialed in,” he continued.
Martin says his group’s competitiveness and bodily play might be key for them on this collection. He additionally believes that this showdown with Penticton may nicely be the perfect hockey that the Alberni Valley Multiplex has ever seen.
That is the primary journey to the league ultimate for the Bulldog franchise, which got here into the league because the Burnaby Bulldogs in 1998-99 and moved to Port Alberni in 2002-03.
They’ve been spurred on in these playoffs by goalie Campbell Arnold, 21, who was signed early within the season to be a backup to College of North Dakota commit Hobie Hedquist, 20, after being minimize by the WHL’s Victoria Royals.
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Hedquist was harm in Recreation 4 of Alberni Valley’s seven-game, second spherical win over the Surrey Eagles. Arnold took the online from there and has sparkled. He’s 7-1, with a 2.04 targets in opposition to common and .928 save proportion within the post-season, after going 3-6 with a 3.53 GAA and a .902 SP within the common season for Port Alberni.
“He’s free. He’s having enjoyable. I don’t know if he was having enjoyable earlier within the 12 months,” Martin mentioned of Campbell.
Alberni rallied from 2-0 and 3-2 collection deficits in opposition to Surrey (35-16-2-1), who have been second within the Coastal. They then swept the Chilliwack Chiefs (28-22-1-3), who have been fifth within the Coastal. They opened-up with a sweep of the sixth-place Grizzlies (26-20-5-3).
The Vees swept the eighth-place Path Smoke Eaters (20-27-3-4) and the seventh-place Wenatchee Wild (28-23-1-2), earlier than going 5 video games with the fourth-place Silverbacks (27-20-4-3) within the Inside playoffs.
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The Vees received their two video games this season in opposition to the Bulldogs, scoring a 7-4 win on the Chilliwack Coliseum on Oct. 20 as a part of the BCHL Showcase match after which successful 7-1 on the Alberni Valley Multiplex on Nov. 25.
Penticton set a BCHL file for win proportion (. 935) this season, bettering their very own 2011-12 mark (. 917, 54-4-2-0). They grew to become simply the eighth group in league historical past to win 50 video games in a season.
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Originally posted 2023-05-09 21:14:22.
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