Earle Couper
Record Staff
The Comox Valley Glacier Kings were the hosts with the most – penalties – on Friday night and it cost them big-time against the Richmond Sockeyes.
The PJHL Sockeyes went 4-for-8 on the power play and outshot the VIJHL Glacier Kings 41-20 en route to a 6-2 victory in the second round of round-robin play at the 2013 Cyclone Taylor Cup before a big crowd at the Comox Valley Sports Centre.
The win improved Richmond’s record to a tourney-best 2-0 (they beat the VIJHL Victoria Cougars 5-2 on
Thursday) while the Glacier Kings fell to 0-2 (they lost 3-1 to the KIJHL Castlegar Rebels on Thursday) and are all but mathematically eliminated from gold medal contention.
The Cougars are 1-1 following their Friday afternoon win over the Rebels, who are also 1-1. Brandon Egli’s second-period goal was the game winner in what was a genuine goaltenders’ duel. Evan Roch made 27 saves for the shutout while Jordan Gluck was equally impressive at the other end of the ice, making 29 saves.
Today’s games have Castlegar against Richmond at 3:30 p.m. and the Glacier Kings taking on the Cougars at 7: 30 p.m. The results will decide the medal-round matchups for Sunday, with the bronze-medal game at 10: 30 a.m. followed by the gold-medal game at 2:30 p.m. While Friday’s results all but technically eliminated the host Yetis, they also set up the possibility of a three-way tie for first place with Richmond, Castlegar and Victoria all at 2-1 at the end of the round-robin play.
BC Hockey tie-breaking procedures are used to break any ties occuring in the round-robin portion. Both
playoff games are subject to sudden-death overtime rules. The gold medallist is the B.C. Junior B provincial champion and moves on to play in the Keystone Cup Western Canadian championship in St.
Malo, Manitoba later this month.
Despite the score in Friday’s matinee matchup, it could have been worse if not for Comox Valley netminder Michael Hails, who was particularly good on several 2-on-1 Richmond forays. The Sockeyes’ sixth goal was into an empty net, a shorthanded tally by Jake Roder that clinched his hat trick.
The Yetis trailed 3-0 after two periods and were outshot 29-13 during that time. Tyson Rennie gave the
Icemen a spark of life about a minute into the third period as he deked a defenceman than fired a puck that goalie Kootenay Alder is still looking for. But the sin bin syndrome that had allowed Richmond to score two of its first three goals kicked in just five minutes later, and Roder jammed the puck through Hails’ pads to put the Sockeyes back in front by three.
To their credit the Glacier Kings did not roll over. Near the eight minute mark Wade Bartlett buried a
Sasha Hahn rebound to cut the lead to 4-2. But when Rylan Ball picked up his team’s second game misconduct for a hit to the head (Steve Garcia had the other), Richmond’s crisp-passing power play went back to work and Dean Allison slapped a rebound home with five minutes left in the frame to make it 5-2.
When Rennie was hauled down while going to the net with 3:21 left in the third, the Glacier Kings called
time out and pulled Hails in favour of the extra attacker. That set the stage for Roder’s third goal of the game at 17:34. In the final seconds of play, Cody Eliason ran into Allison, but time ran out before the Richmond power play could do any more damage.
