The Smithers Storm are one step closer to becoming champions.
The Storm swept the Prince Rupert Sea Wolves 11-0 and 12-0 on home ice to advance to the zone finals last weekend.
In the opening game on Saturday morning, the Storm took an early lead with defenceman Carson Golder netting his first of four just two minutes into the first.
The Storm piled on three more that period with goals from Golder, Kaien Tait and Matthew Sutherland.
For the better half of the game, the Sea Wolves were on the defensive and were unable to stop the Storm’s powerhouse offence.
In the end, all three lines generated points, with a total of eight players tallying multiple points in the blowout victory.
Netminder Torin Cumiskey, who wasn’t very busy through all three periods, earned himself a shutout.
“I thought they played well,” said head coach Cody Campbell.
“We’re trying to generate offence off the rush and get a lot of shots on goal. The kids are getting quite a bit bigger, faster and stronger and we were able to play in the other team’s end quite a bit.”
Up next, the team will take on Kitimat or Vanderhoof this weekend at home.
But Campbell expects the competition will be stiff in the next round of the playoffs.
“We expect a pretty intense match up moving forward,” he said. “I think trying to replicate that in practice is the most important thing; practice hard and keep building on the things that we’ve been working on since September.”
He added they hope to work on generating chances off the rush and working the puck down low.
