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Rockies and Nitros clash in game six tonight
KIJHL Notebook
By Emanuel Sequeira
The Kootenay International Junior Hockey League (KIJHL) Teck Cup Championship playoff action continues to be great as the second round enters its latter half with a few teams now in best-of-three battles as you can see in our playoff bracket.
This edition of the KIJHL Notebook focuses on how teams are doing in their respective second-round series.
Eddie Mountain Division
Austin Daniels of the Kimberley Dynamiters said they feel pretty good about how they are playing against the Columbia Valley Rockies, despite a bit of a slow start in the first game.
“I think we’ve been playing as a team and sticking to our system and we’ve had goals from guys all throughout the lineup,” he said. “Our depth is really showing in this series as well as our fitness, we don’t seem to be fatiguing too much. We are pretty happy with how things are going so far.”
Daniels said they like that they are keeping things simple, trying to stick to their systems.
“Our defence has obviously been something we are pretty proud of,” he said. “We haven’t let in too many goals and CVR has a pretty high offence. We have been limiting them as best we can and I think their defence has been doing a really good job this series.”
Daniels said that everyone has been playing pretty well.
“I can pick pretty much any guy on our team,” he said. “Everybody has been showing up to play every single night. It has been pretty awesome to see that.”
Kayde Kinaschuk of the Columbia Valley Rockies said in Game 1 they played really well against the Kimberley Dynamiters, winning 2-1, and said the last couple of games bad bounces have hurt them.
“We have been right there, a couple one-goal games (4-3 and 5-4 for Kimberley) and we could easily be up in this series,” said Kinaschuk. “I still think we have got the team to comeback in the series for sure.”
Kinaschuk said an adjustment they need to make is playing better defensively and simplifying areas of their game.
“We are all playing as a team and everyone is doing their part,” said Kinaschuk. “We have definitely generated a lot of offence, a lot of chances and we just have to bear down and start putting them in more.”
The Rockies extended the series to Game six in Invermere tonight (March 11), with a gutsy 5-4 overtime win last night before 687 faithful at the Kimberley Civic Centre.
The two clubs are back at it again tonight at 7 p.m. at Invermere’s Eddie Mountain Memorial Arena.
Read about the rest of the KIJHL match-ups.
– Emanuel Sequeira is KIJHL Director of Communications
