Starting the season with one of the longest road trips on their BC Hockey Major Midget League schedule, the Valley West Hawks returned home from Nelson with two victories over the Kootenay Ice.
Valley West came from behind for a 7-4 win Saturday night, then rolled past Kootenay 9-1 on Sunday.
The Hawks are one of 11 zone teams in the provincial league for elite 15-17 year-olds, drawing players from the Semiahmoo, Surrey, Cloverdale and Langley minor hockey associations.
The Ice led 2-1 and 4-3 at the period breaks in the first game Saturday, but each time they scored, Valley West replied to tie the game.
The Hawks finally took the lead three minutes into the second period on a goal by Cloverdale’s Jordan Funk. Defenceman Paul Savage of Surrey added an insurance goal 90 seconds later, then Mitch Newsome of Surrey closed out the scoring with an empty net goal with 52 seconds to play.
Paul Smith of White Rock and Surrey skaters Justin Wilde and Shakeel Ebrahim were the other goal scorers.
Kyle Cheema of Cloverdale made 17 saves to get the win.
The Hawks dominated Sunday’s rematch, taking a 4-0 lead after 20 minutes, and going up 5-0 before the Ice scored their lone goal.Funk, Luke Gingras of Langley and White Rock’s Davis Koch paced Valley West with two goals each, with Newsome, Smith and Savage adding singles. Ty Westgard of White Rock had five assists on the game.
Cole Forbes, also of Cloverdale, was the winning netminder. He stopped 17 of 18 Ice shots.
Valley West will face-off twice with the Okanagan Rockets next weekend at the Richmond Oval, where 10 of the 11 teams will play in a super weekend. The Hawks and Rockets play at 5:15 p.m. Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday.
