The Abbotsford Pilots will play for the Keystone Cup on Sunday afternoon.
The local squad punched its ticket to the title game at the Western Canadian junior B hockey championship tournament in Saskatoon with a 3-0 win over the Traveland RV Storm on Saturday morning.
The Pilots and the Pilot Butte, Sask. squad battled to a scoreless stalemate through two periods, but Kyle Star broke the ice with a goal at 9:49 of the final frame. Justin Dorey took over from there, bulging the twine twice – the second into an empty net – to round out the scoring.
Pilots goalie Riley Parker posted a 26-save shutout, and picked up player of the game honours.
That triumph gave the Pilots a 4-0-0 record in the round robin, and ensured they would finish among the top two in a six-team field and thus qualify for the final.
It also rendered their final round robin game moot, and Abbotsford dropped an 8-1 decision to the Whitecourt Wolverines on Saturday evening.
Dorey scored the Pilots’ lone goal on a first-period power play, but the Alberta representatives got four-point nights from Brennan Romanovitch (one goal, three assists) and Riley Hellekson (two goals, two assists) en route to victory.
The Pilots (4-1-0) will face the Thunder Bay Northern Hawks (4-1-0) in Sunday’s final, which starts at 1 p.m. Central time (11 a.m. Pacific). Abbotsford beat Thunder Bay 7-4 in their tournament opener on Thursday, but the Ontario squad bounced back to win their next four games and earn a rematch in the final.
