It was an exciting night as BCHL hockey returned to the Hap for the first time in 585 days, as the Kings were looking to get the season off to a good start with a W over rival Nanaimo Clippers.
The Clippers were the ones to get on the board first on the PP as Max Itagaki put the puck past Zak Brice to open the scoring. However, the lead didn’t last long as 40 seconds later Nathan Small took the shot from off the faceoff and it was tipped by Mark D’agostino and snuck through the legs of Clippers netminder Cooper Black. 1-1 would be the score through the 1st period.
The 2nd period wasn’t the most ideal for the Kings and got off to an unfortunate start start as there was a scramble in front of the Kings net and Shaun Mahoney of Clippers swatted at the puck and hit Brice only to ricochet off Nic Porchetta to was trying to clear the puck but it bounced into his own net. The Clips kept on pressing and less then a minute later they scored another off the zone entry Max Itagaki passed it over to his teammate Tristain Fraser who one timed it in to give the Clips a 3-1 lead. The Kings kept on pressing but couldn’t solve 6’8 goalie Cooper Black who didn’t leave much room in the net for the Kings to shoot at.
The bad luck would continue in the 3rd as Nolan Krogfoss made a hard pass to Dylan Hewlett at the top of the o-zone but went passed him a bounce off the boards to centre to Clippers d-man Skylar Cameron who just stepped out of the box and was free and clear on a breakaway and made no mistake and made it 4-1 for his team. Nanaimo would go on to add another before Parker LoLonde came down the right wing to the faceoff circle and fired it passed a screened Black as the 16 year old would go onto to score his 1st in the BCHL. The Clippers would go on to score one more in the dying minutes and would pick up the victory 6-2 over the Kings.
“We didn’t come engaged to play” said head coach Brock Sawyer on the post game show on 95.7 coast FM “just handed them to many gifts and they capitalized”
The Kings will look for some redemption tonight as they will face off against the Clippers once more at the Hap, which will be the last home game for the Kings until Nov 5.
