When Powell River Kings won their Coastal Conference Championship series against Surrey Eagles 4-2 last week, they earned the right to play Vernon Vipers for the Fred Page Cup.
This will be the third meeting in a row for them and veterans like Chad Niddery are chomping at the bit to start the series.
“When Salmon Arm was up 2-0,” he said of the Interior Conference final, “I was disappointed because I wanted to play Vernon. A lot of the guys don’t know what it’s like but I’ve been there too many times and this year is our year.”
Kings earned a berth in the final by winning their third consecutive Cliff McNabb Trophy, which is awarded to the coastal champions.
After splitting the first two at home, Kings went into Surrey and won game three 3-2 on Monday.
Game four on Tuesday was pivotal and both played their hearts out in a marathon before the Kings prevailed 2-1 in triple overtime.
Each team scored in the first period but from then on Surrey’s Karel St-Laurent and Kings’ Michael Garteig turned aside 129 shots between them before Steven Schmidt broke the tie with a deflection on Chris Williams’ point shot.
Schmidt’s goal came at 4:52 of the third overtime (five minutes to midnight) and it delighted the 100-plus Kings’ fans at the game, hundreds more at Evergreen Theatre and all of those listening or watching at home.
Players are supposed to leave everything out on the ice with every shift so the seemingly never-ending game took a huge toll on them.
Fruit, almonds and energy bars were eaten between periods on the Kings’ bench, while Surrey, according to Niddery, ordered pizza. “I don’t eat anything,” he said, “but you have to drink as much as you can because I couldn’t even sweat after Garbo [Matt Garbowsky] and I logged I don’t know how many minutes. I was exhausted. I looked at Grimmer [Geoff Grimwood] saying, ‘you’ve gotta play someone else. I’m seized up—I’m done.’”
Kings ached to win the series at home in game five on Thursday but were upset by the gritty Eagles 3-1.
“We feel like we let down the fans because there were so many of them there that night,” said Niddery, who apologized to the 1,215 fans. “We wanted to get this done at home for them and we came out dominant, but there were a couple of bad bounces combined with us not being able to find the back of the net.”
As much as they enjoyed winning a game seven against Victoria at home, Kings didn’t want to test those waters again.
“We knew going into Vancouver that the joke was over and we had a job to do so we finished it,” Niddery said after the 4-1 win. “That was probably one of our better 60s since the start of the playoffs.”
With Surrey out of the way Kings turn their attention to the interior.
“We’ve learned a lot from the last two series and our team is finally coming together at the right time, which I’m very excited about going into the finals,” said Niddery. He believes the team deserves to win, having had no hiccups during the regular season, and having presented a mature group on and off the ice. “This is our third time and the hockey gods up there have got to be giving us something soon. All the guys are so fired up right now,” Niddery said, “Everyone’s so excited from the coaching staff to the goalies. I’m absolutely stoked for it.”
The series everyone has been waiting for starts at 7:30 pm on Friday and Saturday, April 1 and 2 at Hap Parker Arena.
