The Peninsula Panthers and the Victoria Cougars are locked in a first round best-of-seven struggle in the 2013 Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League playoffs.
The series between the rival teams began last Thursday with the Panthers traveling to Archie Browning arena.
That game saw the Panthers lose 6-2 with four of the Cougars’ goals on the powerplay.
The two teams went head to head again for the second game in the series at Panorama Recreation Centre last Friday night. In a surprising turn of events, the Panthers pulled out a 5-3 win against the the team that almost went undefeated in regular season play.
Sunday’s game was another story however, as the team fell to the Cougars by a huge margin of 12-2 with the Panthers totalling 190 minutes in penalties and the Cougars 61.
A handful of players from both teams were thrown out of the game as well as Panthers’ coach Brian Passmore.
“Our kids played their hearts out for the first two games of the series and the first period of the third, but it was penalty on top of penalty after that,” said Panthers’ Head of Hockey Operations, Pete Zubersky.
“No team can compete with that. I want to be as diplomatic as I can be here, but it’s pretty hard,” he continued, adding that he felt even the crowd was disappointed in how some of the calls against the team were handled.
The team took another hard loss to the Cougars on Monday night during a home game at Panorama where the Panthers fell to the Cougars 8-1. Connor Logan scored the team’s single point.
Scoring for the Courgars was Dane Feeney (2), Mark Walton (2), Jamie Severs, Nathan Chen-Mack, Kelyn Opel and Ben Kinshella.
Regardless, Zubersky said, the team is doing their best to keep spirits up, but the series could be a wrap as game five happens tomorrow (Thursday) Feb. 28.
