It appeared for most of the night as if the torch had been passed and there would be a new Western Hockey League representative in the Memorial Cup this year.
But the defending WHL champion Kelowna Rockets, rallying from a 2-0 goals deficit, pulled out a death-defying 3-2 overtime victory against the Victoria Royals on a goal by Calvin Thurkauf before a disbelieving capacity crowd of 7,006 at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
The Royals, playing the first Game 7 in 10 years of franchise history, lost the deciding game of the Western Conference semifinal series.
In a heart-racing end to the third period, Justin Kirkland of the Rockets tied the game with just .20 seconds remaining while the home crowd was on its feet celebrating apparent victory.
That victory eventually came, only for the Rockets.
“That probably tells you it’s not your year,” said Victoria coach Dave Lowry. “Let’s not take anything away from Kelowna. The Rockets played a real hard-fought series. It was only fitting that this series was decided in overtime.
We had our chances. They had their chances to end the series before that, too. Good teams find ways to win hockey games and they found a way to score at the end.”
This may have been Detroit Red Wings prospect Joe Hicketts’ final game in Victoria.
“We worked so hard to be in position to advance to the conference final,” said the Victoria captain.
Which made the Tuesday loss all the more crushing.
“To come within two-tenths of a second of going to third round is gut-wrenching,” said Hicketts.
“But what we learn in a Game 7 overtime is so invaluable. For everyone coming back next year — we have a young team right now —is going to prove to be a good learning experience. As disappointing as it is, when you look back at the season that we had, we have to be proud of what we accomplished [WHL regular-season championship].”
The Rockets advance to meet the large, grinding and well-rested Seattle Thunderbirds in the best-of-seven Western Conference final. Seattle is 21-1 in its past 22 games, including 13 consecutive wins to end the regular season and 4-0 and 4-1 series wins over the Prince George Cougars and Everett Silvertips in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
The Kelowna-Seattle series begins Friday in the Okanagan.
The Royals came out Tuesday with their patented pressure-the-crease game, which resulted in a goal by Tyler Soy off a Jared Dmytriw rebound just one minute and 44 seconds after the opening face-off. The shots were 8-0 before the Rockets even began drying off from the Island tsunami that hit them. With the shots 12-1, Alex Forsberg pounced on the power-play to make it 2-0 at 10:31.
With the shots 21-6 midway through the second period, it sometimes seemed it was valiant Kelowna goaltender Michael Herringer alone against Royals. But veteran Victoria starter Coleman Vollrath also had to be there when needed because some of those fewer Rockets shots were tricky to handle.
The Rockets pulled to within one, adding a well-founded air of trepidation to the rink at 1:13 of the third period, on a soccer-type own goal off Victoria forward Logan Fisher that was credited to Kelowna’s Justin Kirkland.
Herringer, raised in the Comox Valley, was again strong, and likely the difference in the game and series.
The Rockets advanced to their third-consecutive appearance in the conference final.
