There was a pounding drum; there were capacity crowds including a sellout on Saturday night; there were over 170 shots taken; there was even a guy dressed as the ‘Green Man’ from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. But at the end of a marathon weekend of CIHL playoff hockey, the Smithers Steelheads lost the East Division title to the Williams Lake Stampeders, who will move on to the CIHL championship against the Kitimat Ice Demons.
The weekend started out strong, with Steelhead and former NHL goalie Mike Wall shifting to netminding duties, after a season playing wing and defence.
“For him to strap on the pads and help us out was a really classy move on his part,” said Steelheads head coach Gord Young.
The Steelheads hit the ice hard, taking the lead with a goal from Ryan Devries in the first period of Saturday night’s game at the Smithers Civic Centre Arena. In the second, goals from Darryl Young and Kellin Stredulinsky-Brown kept the momentum going in front of a standing-room-only crowd. A Stampeders goal by Jeff Gagnon finished off the second period. In the third, Joe Karpinski scored unassisted to bring the final score to 4-1 for Smithers, and a game each in the best of three series.
Sunday afternoon’s crowd was almost as packed as the previous night’s, but Stampeders goaltender Justin Foote appeared determined to stop everything that came near his net. Despite the Steelheads offence keeping the puck in the Williams Lake end for most of the game, Wilfred Robbins and Paul Girodat scored a goal each for the Stampeders in the second.
Smithers kept hammering Foote, at one point scoring what looked like their first point of the game, although the referee called it no goal. The crossbar was hit a few times, but it seemed as if the Steelheads might be questioning laws of physics and probability. By the end of the game, Foote had racked up 62 saves, and the Stampeders won the game 2-0.
“It comes down to lucky bounces sometimes, and we just didn’t get any,” said Young. “That goaltender had one of those games of a lifetime, it’s just too bad it was against us.”
In a short best of three series, luck sometimes counts as much as any other factor. Young said the team knows they played a winning game despite what the scoreboard read at the end of Sunday afternoon’s 60 minutes of hockey, and said the team will now work on moving past the loss and trying to look ahead to next winter’s chance to make things right.
“It is a hard pill to swallow, especially when our guys did everything right, they did everything they had to do to win the game,” he said. “It’s going to take a bit of time to heal.”