Penticton Vees wrack up seconds straight BCHL title, produce eye-popping stats

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Welcome to our new recreation known as Enjoyable With Penticton Vees Numbers.

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The Vees are the two-time reigning BCHL champions, clinching their second straight Fred Web page Cup Wednesday with a 4-1 win over the Alberni Valley Bulldogs in Port Alberni that gave them a sweep of the best-of-seven closing sequence.

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The Metropolis of Penticton has declared Monday Vees Day and there might be a celebration of the back-to-back championships on the South Okanagan Occasions Centre Plaza starting at 4:30 p.m., which is able to embody a possibility for followers to satisfy the gamers and get their image taken with the Fred Web page Cup. 

It’s tough to provide you with their most spectacular stat from this profitable run.

There’s the mixed report of 125-13-1-3 while you put collectively common season and playoffs over the previous two years. There’s the truth that they’ve received 43 straight video games on their South Okanagan Occasions Centre residence ice, with their final defeat coming within the opener of final yr’s playoffs versus the Path Smoke Eaters. 

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Probably the most telling story of their dominance might come from the truth that throughout their 50-3-0-1 common season this yr they outscored their opponents by extra objectives than all however one different crew within the 18-team Junior A loop. 

Penticton tallied 304 objectives and allowed 96 in league play, giving them a objectives differential of 208. They have been finest within the league in each objectives for and objectives in opposition to. 

The West Kelowna Warriors have been the subsequent highest crew on the objectives for chart with their 211, adopted by the Nanaimo Clippers at 207 and the Surrey Eagles at 200.

“I’m impressed with the group, doing what we did from begin to end and having 13 guys again who had performed it final yr,” stated Fred Harbinson, Penticton’s normal supervisor and coach.

“It will have been comprehensible to have guys turning it off right here and there, not doing that additional work in observe or the burden room. It was fully the alternative with our group. I can’t keep in mind the final time I stepped off the ice after observe and stated, ‘We weren’t excellent as we speak.’

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“It was a particular group, a bunch of nice guys. This group was very tight knit. I by no means had anyone coming into my workplace, asking about ice time or something like that.”

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The Vees employed Harbinson in July 2007, and so they’ve received six BCHL championships in his time. Harbinson pegs this yr’s Penticton facet because the “finest all-around crew I’ve ever had,” and that’s lofty reward when you think about that the 2011-12 Vees crew that received the Royal Financial institution Cup nationwide title is being inducted into the B.C. Sports activities Corridor of Fame subsequent month. That squad, which featured former Vancouver Canucks defenceman Troy Stecher, went 54-4-0-2 within the common season after which 12-3 within the BCHL playoffs earlier than profitable the Canadian banner.

The BCHL pulled out of the Canadian Junior Hockey League in April 2021, which nixed them from competing for the nationwide title, which is now often known as the Centennial Cup. This yr’s Centennial Cup has its championship recreation Sunday in Portage la Prairie, Man. 

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Harbinson factors to this yr’s Vees crew having a bull’s eye on it from the beginning of the season as a result of wealth of returnees from final yr’s championship facet.

“To do it the best way we did it this yr actually says one thing,” Harbinson stated.

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The Vees are anticipated to lose the vast majority of their roster to the NCAA rankings subsequent season, together with brothers Josh and Bradly Nadeau, the College of Maine commits from St-François-de-Madawaska, N.B., who held down the highest two spots in league scoring in each the playoffs and common season. 

Bradly, 18, was No. 1 within the common season with 113 factors, together with 45 objectives. Josh, 19, had 44 objectives and 110 factors. Within the playoffs, it was Josh in entrance, with 36 factors, together with 16 objectives. Bradly had 17 objectives and 35 factors. Alberni ahead Dakota MacIntosh was third with 24 factors, together with 11 objectives.

The BCHL enters a brand new part subsequent season because it introduced Might 1 that it was leaving the Hockey Canada system efficient June 1 to behave as an impartial league. The BCHL felt the Hockey Canada pointers relating to participant recruitment have been too strict and wished to have the ability to usher in 16- and 17-year-olds from different provinces, one thing that wasn’t permitted beneath Hockey Canada’s banner except the participant’s household modified residence.

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B.C. Hockey, which is the provincial department for Hockey Canada, plans on beginning up one other Junior A league. No phrase but on whether or not it’ll be able to go for subsequent season.

Twitter: @SteveEwen

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