The Campbell River Midget Prep Tyees have had one heck of a season, and thanks to a few more exceptional team performances over the past month, it now isn’t set to end for another couple of weeks.
The team cruised to a blistering 8-1-1 record in the regular season, easily securing first place heading into the round-robin facet of the Vancouver Island Amateur Hockey Association (VIAHA) playoffs.
The team started its playoff run at home Feb. 1 against the Nanaimo Clippers and continued to show why they deserved their regular-season record, defeating the Clippers by a score of 10-3.
They couldn’t mount quite the same kind of offensive effort the following weekend against their second round opponents, but still managed to down the Cowichan Capitals handily Feb. 8 down south by a score of 7-2, which meant they finished first in their zone in the round-robin and would host the second-place team from the south, the Peninsula Eagles, in the VIAHA league semi-finals the following week.
The Eagles proved to be much more of a challenge for the No. 1 seed in the north on Feb. 15, fighting their way to a 2-2 tie and sending the game to overtime. It took less than two minutes of the extra frame for the Tyees to find the back of the net and take the game, however, sending the home squad to the league championship.
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That championship was a best-of-three series against the Juan de Fuca Grizzlies.
They didn’t need all three games to secure the championship, however. On Saturday, the Tyees hosted the Grizzlies for Game 1 and put together a complete game performance, getting back to their high-scoring ways as well as getting an outstanding performance from goaltender Tyler Murray for a final score of 9-0.
Game two went the following day down in Victoria, but the team didn’t show any signs of slowing down, nor did their hot goaltender. Despite the effort the previous day and the travel time in between the back-to-back games, they again easily handled the top team from the south, winning by a score of 7-0 and earning the league title, outscoring their opponents in the final series by a whopping 16-0.
The team will now prepare for the Provincial Tier-2 Championship tournament, which takes place March 15-19 in North Saanich at the Panorama Recreation Centre.
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