Vernon Home Building Centre Vipers opened the Banff Challenge Cup with a 6-4 win over the Beaumont Braves of Edmonton Friday in Alberta.
Cole Woodliffe scored first on the powerplay, assisted by Jeff Bochon and Jagger Williamson. Bochon then scored, unassisted, and Williamson converted on the powerplay from Mitch Lukacs.
Lukacs fired Vernon’s next goal, the assist to Griffin Fried. Williamson’s second goal of the game, from Woodliffe, was the winner.
Scott Latwat scored the safety marker, from Lee Springer and Jordan Rea, with just over two minutes to play.
Josh Evans was in net for the win.
Woodliffe earned best puck handler in the skills competition Friday night.
The Nixon Wenger Vipers opened up the Blood, Sweat and Tiers Pee Wee Rep tournament with a 6-1 loss to the Cranbrook Ice Friday.
The Ice used their size and speed to constantly pressure the Vipers. Lincoln Connor handled Vernon’s attack, while Dalton Stenberg made several great saves in the loss.
In Midget rec hockey tournament play Friday at Civic Arena, game MVP Lucas Mitchell supplied 2+2 as the Vernon Authentic Plaque & Trophy Autobots bottled up the South Okanagan Hornets 7-4.
Mitchell’s linemates Isaiah Wenger (1+4) and Kristian Currie (1+1) also enjoyed stellar showings in front of Jared Larsen and Rowan Wood. Captain Liam Curran, Brock Wagner and Jene Desjarlais added singles.
South Okanagan got two goals apiece from Ben Petreny and Ben Quintal, with Lucas Vugteveen earning MVP.
The Vernon Seed Orchard Snakes, who lead the North Okanagan Super League, opened by falling 5-4 to the Chilliwack Chiefs in the late game at Civic.
Matthew Haley produced 2+1 for the Chiefs, including the winner with 63 seconds remaining. Trent Loewen, Adam Wieking and Dylan Briggs added singles in support of game MVP Shane Tilbury.
Captain Austin Bosquet bagged 1+2 for the Snakes, who trailed 3-1 after 20 minutes, but went ahead 4-3 with 6:29 left in the tilt. Adam Fenske, Chris Gallant and Kolton Kirschner also had snipes for the Snakes, whose MVP was defenceman Chase Larsen.
The A final goes today at 3 p.m. at Civic.
In other Winter Classic action, the Nedco Coyotes used hat tricks by Jeremy Pogue and Brett Jewell to stuff Castlegar 7-2 at Civic.
Adam Roemer opened the Coyotes’ account midway through the first period. Kurt Neufeld and Daniel Gagner responded for Castlegar.
The North Okanagan Knights skated to a 5-5 draw with the Kelowna Predators Friday at Priest Valley Arena.
The Knights had built a 4-1 first-period lead on singles by Byron Frances, Ryan Harder, Darryl Fidler and Dalton Kimbasket. Levi Power completed North Okanagan’s offence in the second period.
Kelowna’s Austin Glabus-McLeod fired the equalizer with 21 seconds remaining in regulation.
Meanwhile, a pair of Sams helped David finally knocked off Goliath in Bantam Super League play Friday night.
Sam Knox made 21 saves for his first-ever shutout, while Sam Frisby and Finn O’Keefe each had two goals as the DCT Chambers Marauders blanked the Interior Savings Giants 7-0 at Kal Tire Place.
It was the first time in five tries, counting exhibition, that the smaller Marauders toppled the Giants, and avenged a 9-5 regular-season loss on Nov. 2.
Knox was sharp all night, with the Marauders’ defence doing a great job of keeping the Giants’ big forwards away from the crease. His best save came while sliding across the crease to make a right-pad stop on a Tyler Semeniuk attempt.
Semeniuk rang a backhander off the post on a third-period breakaway.
O’Keefe (2+3) and Cole Martin (1+4)both finished with five-point nights for the truckers. Chris Aldrich had 1+2 for the Marauders while defenceman Braydie Allen-Webber scored his first goal of the year on a powerplay point shot that Giants’ goalie Dylan Blazek got a piece of with his glove.
DCT d-man Adam Raber played a solid game at both ends, contributing two assists to the offence.
Blazek, celebrating his 13th birthday Friday, kept the Marauders from reaching double digits using his patented poke check to thwart a number of breakaways.
Both teams were without their second goalies as Noah Foufoulas (Marauders) and Garrett Adams (Giants) are away at ringette tournaments.
The Marauders, who had assistant coach Clint Nyberg running the bench with head coach George Agar absent, improved to 5-3-1 on the year while the Giants fell to 4-5.
